This List of World War II military service football teams includes all those top-level American football teams consisting of active duty military personnel of the United States Armed Forces that played against collegiate or professional opponents during the seasons of 1942, 1943, or 1944.
Contents
Background
During the years of World War II the American military saw a rapid expansion of its system of military bases as the number of young men skyrocketed through enlistment and conscription. Many of these included former collegiate and professional stars of the football gridiron. Some 19 active or former players of the National Football League would ultimately die in the American war effort, in addition to an uncounted number of former collegians.
Early in the war effort one football writer said about the applicability of the formation of football teams with military training:
Football is a body-toughener. Football lights the fighting spark in fighting men. It develops aggressiveness, teamwork, stamina, physical and mental coordination under active stress, and therefore it holds a foremost place in our national wartime training program. Teams by the hundreds are in formation at various Army camps and posts and Navy bases. The greatest participation in the history of the sport will be entered in the records of 1942.
Beginning in the fall of 1942, the War Department began to promote organized football exhibitions involving select teams from its military bases that played full schedules against the depleted squads of regional universities. These elite teams are included in the following list.
These were further distilled into military All-Star Teams which played against collegiate and professional opponents. In 1942 the U.S. Army named two "All-Army teams" of approximately 60 players per unit, located in the East and West. These were informally known as the "Million Dollar teams" — their purpose being to raise upwards of $1 million for the Army Emergency Relief fund through a series of exhibition clashes with the professional teams of the National Football League. The Eastern Army All-Star team was led by Lt. Col. Robert R. Neyland, and played September 1942 games against the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Chicago Bears. The Western All-Stars, coached by Major Wallace Wade Duke University coach played a slate including games beginning late in August 1942 against the Washington Redskins, Chicago Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, and New York Giants.
The State Fair of Louisiana, which normally sponsored a series college football games as part of its annual State Fair Classic, found itself without its regular host schools at times during the war when they were forced to drop their football programs. In 1945 the locally-based Barksdale Field Sky Raiders were invited to play in two of the classic's games, one against the Selman Army Airfield Cyclones and another against the Lake Charles Army Airfield Flying Tigers. The Camp Swift Dragons ended up filling in for Lake Charles Army Airfield. The fair's "Negro Day" game featured Wiley College paired against the Randolph Field Black Ramblers (the African American counterpart to the Randolph Field Ramblers). Barksdale Field had also previously competed in the 1934 classic, against Texas Military College.
United States Army teams
Teams associated with the bases of the United States Army included:
United States Army Air Forces teams
Teams associated with the bases of the United States Army Air Forces included:
United States Navy teams
Teams associated with the bases of the United States Navy included:
United States Marine Corps teams
United States Coast Guard teams
Teams associated with the bases of the United States Coast Guard included: