Rearview Mirror: Football gets sidelined by Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor
I was chatting with my mail carrier, Gerald Ellamar, this week. His son, Jase, is in his senior year at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., and is a wide receiver on their football team.
Gerald Ellamar has flown to the mainland to attend all four of PLU’s football games so far this season. He told me that there are 22 Hawaii boys on this year’s roster.
Last week, the “Lutes” played the Bearcats of Willamette University, 190 miles south of Tacoma in Salem, Ore.
Pacific Lutheran was down 21-7 at halftime but came from behind to beat Willamette, 31-28. Jase Ellamar caught a 70-yard touchdown pass and had several other catches for a total of 117 yards.
Willamette has a special significance to Hawaii that few know about. Their football team was in Hawaii on Dec., 7, 1941, and most of its players, coaches and supporters were stuck here for nearly two weeks.
I asked Gerald Ellamar if he knew about Willamette’s history with Hawaii and he didn’t. It’s an interesting story, so let’s explore it this week.
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Shrine Bowl
The occasion was the Shrine Bowl, a fundraiser for the Honolulu Shriners Hospital. It provides free orthopedic care to children in Hawaii and the Pacific.
Three teams were invited in 1941 — the University of Hawaii, Willamette University from Oregon and San Jose State College from California. Three games were scheduled — Dec. 6, 13 and 16.
Willamette’s coach, Roy “Spec” Keene, brought 27 players for the matches at Honolulu Stadium. For him, the trip was a recruiting tactic. Many Oregon kids had never even seen the Pacific Ocean, let alone the Hawaiian Islands.
The trip turned out to be so much more than Keene or the players ever imagined.
Arrived on the Lurline
The visiting teams came to Hawaii on the Lurline on Wednesday, Dec. 3. A flotilla of ships from the west were also headed for Oahu at the same time, but they did not notice them.
They did notice it was a lot warmer in Hawaii, about 85 degrees. Oregon and Northern California were 40 degrees cooler.
UH coeds greeted the arriving players and coaches with lei and kisses. Both teams were taken on a tour of Honolulu that included Punchbowl crater and Nuuanu Pali Lookout.
They stayed at the Moana hotel, which sounds extravagant, but in 1941 there were no inexpensive high-rise hotels. A banquet that evening included musical entertainment and hula dancers. The visitors were wowed.
Dec. 6
The first game, between Willamette and UH, was scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 6, at Honolulu Stadium. A full house of 26,000 football fans – about one-tenth of Honolulu’s population — filled the stadium.
The Willamette Bearcats had a very strong team and had lost just one game that season. They had outscored their opponents 218-7.
The Bearcats had a reverse play that had the Rainbows baffled, the Star- Bulletin wrote. “They would swing to the right and the ball carrier did not hand the ball to his teammate on the reverse until the original ball carrier was just about to cut down the field.
“The Hawaii defensive backs were sucked in on this play time and again and it finally gave the visitors their lone touchdown of the contest. The extra point failed.”
Hawaii’s star player, Nolle Smith Jr., was known as “the fastest man in the islands.” He was a slim, 160-pound halfback. Willamette tackle George Constable said that what he remembers most about the game was seeing the back of Smith’s jersey all afternoon.
Smith played both offense and defense, something that was common back then. He intercepted two Willamette passes and knocked down two others. He also tackled Bearcat running back Ted Ogdahl after a 51-yard gain, preventing another touchdown.
On offense, Smith carried the ball 16 times for 180 yards and caught two passes for 25 yards. The final score was UH 20, Willamette 6.
Dec. 7
Author Jim Campbell wrote about the Willamette team on Dec. 7. He quoted lineman Pat White, who recalled that, “We were up early on Sunday, Dec. 7, to take a bus tour of the island and then picnic on the North Shore with a group of UH coeds. But the bus never showed. Some Army MPs herded us back to the hotel. We didn’t know what all the hustle and bustle was about at first.”
Center Wally Olson saw splashes in the ocean while eating breakfast at the Moana. His waiter told him what he saw were “just whale spouts.” Olson said, “We were just farm boys and lumberjacks, but after about a dozen eruptions in the water, we knew that something was up and it wasn’t good. There couldn’t be that many whales out there!”
Wayne Hadley and his girlfriend, Shirley McKay, decided walk down Waikiki Beach and go swimming. “We began to see offshore splashes and airbursts, but like so many others, we thought it part of Navy maneuvers.
“McKay remarked ‘how realistic’ they looked. ‘Neither of us realized we were eyewitnesses to the start of World War II for the United States. Pearl Harbor was only eight miles away. Mostly, we just heard the noise — planes flying, bombs dropping, and explosions. It was a sight we’ll never forget.’”
George Constable added, “We were on the roof of the Moana, watching what we thought were pretty authentic maneuvers. We heard shells exploding, saw splashes in the water, but were kind of oblivious as to what was really happening. Ironically, I had a Kodak box camera in my room, but I wasn’t going to go down to get it just to take snapshots of ‘practice runs.’”
When it became clear that the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was under attack, Coach Keene quickly volunteered the team’s services to the Army. They were all issued World War I rifles and metal helmets.
The team strung barbed wire on Waikiki Beach, anticipating an invasion. They dug trenches and helped set up machine-gun emplacements.
Later, they were sent to stand guard at Punahou School. The Army Corps of Engineers had taken over the school as their headquarters and used it as an ammo depot. The women in their group volunteered at hospitals.
The two games scheduled for Dec. 13 and 16 were never played. Also canceled was their return trip home.
Caring for the wounded
Keene scrambled to arrange passage on the ocean liner President Coolidge on Dec. 19. It normally carried 800, but 1,200 were already booked, including 150 wounded.
Keene promised his football team would attend to the wounded servicemen, many of whom had amputations or serious burns.
The team boarded with just two hours’ notice. The ship zigzagged to San Francisco, in case Japanese submarines spotted them.
McKay recalled sighting the California coast. “We were still several miles out to sea, but we could see land. California never looked so good. We were all elated.
“I’m not sure how it started, but we all started singing ‘California Here I Come.’ As we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge on Christmas Day, December 25, a special feeling came over all of us. I’ll never forget it.”
Over 1,000 people greeted them on Dec. 26, when their train arrived at the station in Salem.
Campbell noted, “All 28 members of the Bearcats team enlisted in the armed services shortly after arrival back home. Only Bob Reder, killed in action, did not survive the war.”
In 1997 the Bearcats football team of 1941 was inducted en masse into the Willamette University Athletics Hall of Fame.
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at [email protected] or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
