The Pittsburgh Press (December 1, 1945)
Unbeaten Army, Navy square off
Cadets rule favorites by 26 points in battle before 102,000 fans
PHILADELPHIA (UP) – After a year of waiting and a season of fretting, Army and Navy squared off on the turf of Municipal Stadium today in the first all-undefeated classic of their long, hard-fought series.
With President Truman heading a horde of 102,000 fans, the “game of the year” returned to its pre-war setting after semi-private showings at Annapolis, West Point and Baltimore the past three years.
And, as the two titans of the college football world stepped out for a 1:30 p.m. kickoff in clear and cold weather, Army’s crashing Cadets ruled 26-point favorite. It was a case of “damn the torpedoes” as gold-helmeted horde from up the Hudson sought to wind up its second consecutive unbeaten and untied campaign with its 18th win in a row.
Last for Hagberg
“But we’ll give them a helluva battle,” said Navy Coach Cmdr. Oscar Hagberg, who heads back to the sea after this game – one he’d sure like to take back for the fellows in the Fleet.
The odds, however, were greatly against him and his gallant Middies. This despite the fact that the kids fro Crabtown had not tasted defeat this season as they rolled over seven opponents and tied Notre Dame.
For this Army eleven is conceded to be one of the greatest in college football history. Spearheaded by the line-smashing Felix “Doc” Blanchard, ranked as a junior Nagurski, and the fleet and elusive Glenn Davis, the Cadets have roared over eight opponents without being tested. It’s a high-powered scoring machine which has counted 380 points – and the 33 points against it weren’t given up by the varsity,
Middies had bad moments
And it’s a team that – this far – was cheering for Navy. Because the Cadets wanted to be the ones to knock off the Middies.
Navy had their bad moments, because Notre Dame almost won that 6-6 tie and the Middies had to storm back in the last period to top Penn, 14-7. The odds on this game are understandable when you consider Army bested the Irish, 48-0, and thumped the Quakers, 61-0.
The pre-game show will be all it was in former years, with the corps of Cadets and Middies parading before the kickoff. Then they’ll be at it.
The lineups:
| Army | Navy | |
|---|---|---|
| LE | Pitzer | Duden |
| LT | Coulter | Kiser |
| LG | Gerometta | Carrington |
| C | Fuson | R. Scott |
| RG | Green | Deramee |
| RT | Nemetz | Coppedge |
| RE | Foldberg | Bramlett |
| QB | Tucker | Smith |
| LH | Davis | C. Scott |
| RH | McWilliams | Minisi |
| FB | Blanchard | Bartos |
Referee: Harry O. Dayhoff, Bucknell
Umpire: Frank S. Bergen, Princeton
Linesman: Philip E. Geithner, NYU
Field Judge: Ray J. Barbuti, Syracuse
The Pittsburgh Press (December 2, 1945)
TRUMAN AND 101,999 OTHERS SEE ARMY WALLOP NAVY, 32-13
Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis score all cadet touchdowns
Middies give everything they have, but it’s not enough to stop pointers
By Chester L. Smith, Press sports editor
PHILADELPHIA (UP, Dec. 1) – The “Bee & Dee System,” which is well on its way to becoming a football legend, was running right on schedule here in the Municipal Stadium this biting cold afternoon.
And so it was that Army won the 46th game of the series with Navy, 32-13, while President Truman, many of his Cabinet and nearly all the brass and braid of the services so recently back from the wars looked on. The crowd totaled 102,000.
For purposes of identification, the “Bee & Dee” is composed of Felix “Doc” Blanchard, Army’s battling beezark from Bishopville, South Carolina, and Glenn W. Davis of Claremont, California.
One is the battering ram, the other the lance in West Point’s potent stock of gridiron weapons.
They score 5 times
Today, Blanchard scored three touchdowns, Davis two. Navy had nothing to match such versatility. The Midshipmen gave all they had, and there were moments when they looked the part of anything but a whipped team.
But in the last analysis, they simply were no match for the Cadets, who now are the national champions beyond question and have gone through their 18 games of 1944 and 1945 without a defeat.
Not since Navy defeated the Cadets in the final game of 1943 has the Army been on the losing end.
With the “Bee & Dee” ready to run again come another year, it would be a hardy optimist indeed who would dare forecast when the Cadets are due to come to the end of the line.
Blanchard scores quickly
Today’s game had been decided almost before the last of the latecomers were in their seats.
Blanchard went piling over from a yard out on the sixth play after the kickoff, stormed through Navy’s arms for 17 yards and a second touchdown a few minutes later, and then graciously allowed the meteoric Davis to rush 48 yards for a third score before the period had ended.
Navy never could regain its poise after such a mauling, which found Army sitting happily on a 20-0 lead in such a short time.
Thereafter, the going was not so easy for Army. But Blanchard found occasion to intercept a pass and barge it back 46 yards in the third quarter and there was a fifth touchdown reserved for Davis in the final period, this a 28-yard expedition.
Misses three kicks
It made little difference that Cadet Dick Walterhouse of Michigan was able to contribute the seventh point only twice in five tries. His teammates didn’t need him today.
Clyde Scott of Smackover, Arkansas, and Steve Bartos, from Lorain, Ohio, were Navy’s touchdown-makers.
Scott combined with Bruce Smith in the last seconds of the first hail on a pass and run that totaled 63 yards. Bartos lunged the final foot in the last quarter to cap a drive that saw the Midshipmen in their finest performance of the afternoon.
Jack Currence of Charleston, West Virginia, place-kicked one point and missed one.
Navy line outplayed
Navy not only had no one (let alone two) who could match Blanchard and Davis, but her line was unable to parry charge for charge with the opposing forwards.
From wing to wing, Army was there first with the most. Dick Pitzer of Connellsville and Henry Foldberg were magnificent ends, with Dewitt Coulter a dream tackle and Capt. John Green a magnificent guard.
Navy backs frequently were trapped and thrown for heavy losses, while Army’s mechanics at covering kicks, rushing the passer and other such vital chores consistently were performed with the greater skill.
Sneak gains 12
Quarterback Arnold Tucker expertly maneuvered Army to its first touchdown. After bringing Navy’s kickoff up to his 44, he sneaked off to his right for 12 yards and then flipped a pass in the flat to Davis, who tore off 20 more to the 24, with Blanchard throwing in a paralyzing block as picker-up for his pal.
Two penalties hurt the over-anxious Middies, the second moving them inside their 10, and after Tucker had spun to the three, Blanchard did the rest.
Navy came back then to strike to midfield on handoffs to Bill Baron and Tony Manusi, but lost heavily on an exchange of punts. When Bob Kelly kicked out on his 37, Army went on the prowl again.
Tucker got superb blocking to pile-drive through center for 24 yards and that was Blanchard’s cue.
Runs over tacklers
Doc bored inside of Navy’s left tackle, ran over two tacklers and shouldered Scott out of the way for the touchdown. A bulldozer couldn’t have been any more unstoppable.
Davis’ sally, as the quarter drew to a close, got its start when the Army forwards rubbed out the left side of Navy’s line. Once this was done, it was a solo. Scott tried to chase the Coast Comet but he might as well have been pursuing a ghost for all the chance he had of catching his man.
The Cadets might not have been the victims of Navy’s dazzling touchdown pass in the second quarter had it not been that Blanchard got off his poorest punt of the game after the Midshipmen had relinquished the ball on downs on the 20-yard stripe.
Middies gamble
This, with a holding penalty, set Army down on its 35 and when Bianchard punted again, Annapolis was in position to gamble.
For the first time, the Sailors went into a spread, with Bruce Smith five yards behind the center and the other three backs lined up a full 30 yards to the right.
Smith passed to the middle man, who was well screened when he made the catch on Army’s 40. Only Davis had Scott’s range and although he closed the gap between them, his goal line tackle was short by inches.
But now Navy was 13 points in arrears instead of 20 and when it came back after half time to charge past its 40-yard line, the regiment of Midshipmen in the stands expressed their delight with a roar that shook the big horseshoe.
Blanchard aroused
But the demonstration had fatal repercussions, for it also aroused Blanchard to the sudden emergency that had come into his young life. His answer was to get in front of a Bruce Smith forward on the 46-yard line, wheel to his left and begin moving.
Navy tried to find him, but blockers made their appearance when and where they were needed, and in no time at all another touchdown was being racked up for the “Bees & Dees.”
Army misplayed its hand twice in the fourth quarter and from these errors the Navy was able to fashion a second and a last score.
The first faux pass was a fumble by Blanchard after he had reeled off a 10-yard gain.
Scott recovers
When the pack had finished playing hide and seek with the pigskin, Scott had recovered for Navy on its 32 and Smith immediately punted his forces off the spot.
But Davis, on an attempted sweep, found himself hemmed in by a cordon of Midshipmen and recklessly hurled a pass blindly down field where Navy’s Smith was delighted to gather it in and speed back to Army’s 26.
For the next two minutes the center of the Cadet line received an artistic trouncing as first Barron and then Bartos cracked it for 12 yards apiece.
Bartos scores
From the three, where he landed on his first stab, Bartos carved a path to the one-foot line, and over on the next play.
It was then the Navy’s turn to embarrass itself, and it did through the medium of a pass interference foul on Barron’s part, which cost 29 yards and a roughing infraction charged to End Leon Bramlett, for which 15 additional yards were assessed.
No foe can afford to unlatch the gate for Army and expect to get off unscathed. In another moment, Davis had been ferried through a huge bulge at left tackle and found himself with nothing except fresh air to contend with the remainder of the distance.
Army keeps moving
This was the final act of the kill, but Army continued to keep the bell moving toward Navy’s goal in the last stages with second and third stringers on the field.
Once a fumble by Scott was retrieved by the West Pointers and with seconds to go, they completed the devastation with a pass interception.
Even Blaik calls Army real team
And Navy coach joins in praise
PHILADELPHIA (UP, Dec. 1) – Col. Earl H. “Red” Blaik finally broke down and admitted tonight what everybody has been saying right along – that his Army juggernaut “is a whale of a football team.”
And Navy’s Coach Cmdr. Oscar Hagberg, who never doubted it in the first place, was more convinced than ever after his valiant Middies were manhandled 32-13.
“Army is a magnificent team,” he concurred.
Complains about wind
Blaik had one lament – the fierce crosswind that sliced across the field.
“We never had an opportunity to roll; never had a chance to open our attack,” he said. “We could do very little throwing against the wind. Navy knew it and it tightened up its defense against our running plays. But I’m very thankful to get what we got.
“We were hanging on very definitely in the third period when Navy had the ball with the wind to its back. This is the toughest position my boys have been in all season.”
Lauds Navy team
Blaik paid glowing tribute to Navy: “Today we were playing against just as fine a team as there is anywhere. I think Navy played its best game of the year today.”
Then Blaik always charry of praise for his own team: “This is the finest team we ever had at West Point, at least in my time. We’ve got a whale of a football team.”
Wind, penalties hurt
Hagberg, completing his two-year hitch as Navy coach, agreed – both as to Army’s fierce competence and the havoc played by the wind.
“The wind and those penalties in the first period hurt us,” he said. “Kicking into that wind was tough. We were physically outmatched in the line, but you can’t block a tiger.”
President remains neutral but daughter cheers Army
PHILADELPHIA (UP, Dec. 1) – President Truman, intent on neutrality, was double-crossed by his pretty blond daughter at the Army-Navy football game today.
Twenty-year-old Margaret turned out to be a red-hot Army rooter.
The president presided over an official party of about 200 top government figures and their families at Municipal Stadium and enthusiastically applauded both sides. He sat during the first half on the Army side of the field and switched over to the Navy side for the last half.
Dejected on Navy gains
Miss Truman and Mrs. Truman remained in the Army section for all the game. Margaret, a senior at George Washington University, rooted the winning team home with vigor. When Navy advanced so much as a yard she was a picture of dejection and turned to her mother for solace.
But when Blanchard or Davis, the two Army powerhouse backs, ripped through the Navy line, she squealed with delight and behaved in general like any other college girl backing a favorite in a football game.
Top brass with president
The president, on his first real holiday in about two months, enjoyed himself. He is not much of a football fan, but he followed each play with interest.
A sharp wind bothered him during the first quarter. He wore only a topcoat and got chilled. He draped himself in a gray blanket, Indian fashion, and warmed up with steaming cocoa and hot dogs.
The president sat between Mrs. Truman and Adm. William D. Leahy, his personal chief of staff. In the boxes around him were the biggest names in government – virtually all of the Cabinet, congressional leaders and agency heads.
Returns to Washington
Gen. George C. Marshall, recently relieved as Army chief of staff now Mr. Truman’s personal envoy to China, and Gen. H. H. Arnold, Army Air Force commander, sat near the chief executive.
Adm. Ernest J. King, who steps out soon as chief of naval operations, and his successor, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, sat with the chief executive in the Navy section.
The president went to his special train immediately after the game and returned directly to Washington where he was to board his new yacht, the USS Williamsburg, for a weekend cruise on the Potomac River.
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Army-Navy game television lauded
Story cabled into New York
By Jack V. Fox, United Press staff writer
NEW YORK (Dec. 1) – Television – it’s wonderful!
While 102,000 persons shivered in the icy, wind-swept Municipal Stadium at Philadelphia, I sat in a pastel-tinted studio on the eighth floor of Rockefeller Center and watched the Army-Navy game in luxury.
It was better than being in the grandstand – and much warmer. The guy next to me kept passing a bottle. The girl up front wore a chrysanthemum. Some character a few seats over had on a raccoon coat and was waving a pennant.
Major subdued
There was a very superior Army major, gloating over Army’s performance. But he shut up after the first quarter.
The view was as good as you could have had from the 50-yard line. It was like watching a clear newsreel but without the jerky loss of continuity.
Army and Navy both were a little too deceptive for the television cameraman at times. but there was an announcer to fill in the confusing places when the screen missed the ball carrier.
Canvas atop stadium
The National Broadcasting Co. transmitted the broadcast, with cameras both atop the stadium and on the field to give an overall picture and a closeup of backfield and individuals in action. Almost 200 persons huddled around 10 receiving sets in the NBC studio here.
The pictures were transmitted by coaxial cable from Philadelphia to New York for an estimated 3,000 set owners. The classic also was broadcast by the Philco station in Philadelphia and the General Electric station at Schenectady, New York – probably the biggest audience for a single broadcast in the history of television.
Applause politely
The audience was a little subdued by the newness of it all – applauding vigorously but politely instead of yelling and jamming down the hat of the man in front.
But when it was all over, the television audience filed out easily onto Fifth Avenue. No jam, no crowded highways – no pneumonia.
The Evening Star (December 2, 1945)
102,000 watch Army defeat Navy, 32-13
Blanchard and Davis score five touchdowns; Middies’ rally thrills
By Francis E. Stann, Star staff correspondent
PHILADELPHIA (Dec. 1) – For the second year in succession, Army reigns as the national football champion. Before President Truman, members of his Cabinet, many of the highest-ranking Army and Navy officers and 102,000 other half-frozen spectators, West Point’s vaunted Black Knights defeated Navy today, 32-13, to run their winning streak to 18 games.
With a crushing first period offensive, Army took a 20-0 lead, but thereafter the Cadet team, heralded as the greatest in West Point history, was forced to fight doggedly against a Navy eleven that refused to quit until the final whistle.
The Midshipmen, unbeaten but once-tied, as they faced the Cadets in the first service game in memory with both teams undefeated, were victimized chiefly by Fullback Felix “Doc” Blanchard and Halfback Glenn Davis, all-American stars of 1944 who accounted for all five of Army’s touchdowns.
Blanchard, Davis do scoring
Thrice did Blanchard, 205-pound line-cracker from Bishopville, South Carolina, cross Navy’s goal – once after intercepting a pass – and twice Davis, speedy Claremont, California, boy, got off for scoring runs, the first a 48-yard jaunt and the second covering 29 yards. The Army line was all that it had been rated and the combination was too much for the Middies to overcome, although they came far closer to matching the Cadets than expected by bettors, who gave Army a 27-point margin.
It was the 24th victory for Army in the 46-game series, with Navy showing 19 victories. Three of the classics wound up in ties.
It was Army’s running game that proved too much for Navy. With Davis gaining 97 yards in 13 attempts and Blanchard 77 yards in 17 ball-carrying efforts. Army gained 259 yards by rushing to 120 for the Middies. But through the air Army gained only seven yards on a single completed pass, while Navy’s five completions in 15 attempts were good for 106 yards.
Overall, Navy made 11 first downs to Army’s 10. In defeat, Navy was more impressive than in most of its victories or in its 6-6 tie with Notre Dame.
Navy puts up fierce fight
Navy’s amazing fight in the final three periods endeared the Middies to the huge crowd, which saw Army roll up three touchdowns within the first 14 minutes and which apparently was resigned to a rout such as marked the Black Knights’ jousts with Penn, Notre Dame and others. On three of the first four occasions when the West Pointers got possession of the ball they scored, and it took a stout-hearted foe to fight off demoralization, as did Navy.
Exactly three minutes, 38 seconds after Guard Jim Carrington kicked off for Navy to open the game, the score was 6-0, so hard-hitting was the Army team. Nine plays after Quarterback Arnold Tucker returned the kickoff to his own 45, Big Blanchard plunged over the goal, and the missed extra point by Dick Walterhouse was not seriously regarded in view of the comparative ease with which Army paraded those 55 yards, featuring a 20-yard gain by Davis after taking a lateral pass from Tucker, and two penalties against Navy for off-side.
The Crabtown team tore back into Army after receiving the next kickoff, marching from its own 20 to a first down on the Cadet’s 47, but here the attack bogged and the foes exchanged punts, only time Army failed to score after getting the ball in this period.
Cadets pile up score
A short punt by Navy’s Bob Kelly, a weird effort that went out of bounds after traveling only 10 yards, set up Army’s second touchdown. The Black Knights took the ball on the Middies’ 37 and in five plays they scored, although one of the plays resulted in Davis’ being thrown for a nine-yard loss by Navy End Lee Bramlett. The big punch was a 25-yard dash by Tucker on a quarterback sneak, putting the ball on Navy’s 17. Blanchard negotiated the remaining distance on the next play.
Two minutes and 55 seconds later, Army struck again with the most devastating attack in football. Bob Chabot returned a punt to the Middies’ 49 and on the first play there after Davis broke off tackle and romped across the goal. When Walterhouse added extra points to Blanchard’s second touchdown, and Davis’ first, it was 20-0 and Navy apparently was badly beaten.
But Navy began to bounce back in the second quarter, in which Army had the ball only three times and failed to get beyond its own 40. Meanwhile, Navy was being sparked by Fullback Joe Bartos and Halfback Bill Barron and the pair led Navy as deep as the Pointers’ 20 on second down, when two passes failed.
Middies reach pay dirt
Finally, with only 26 seconds of the half remaining, Navy brought the crowd to its feet when, with the ball on its own 38, Quarterback Bruce Smith passed to Halfback Clyde Scott, who ran 36 yards after matching the ball with Davis chasing him. The Cadet caught him on the goal line, but Scott had too much momentum to be halted. Curly Currence added the point to make it 20-7.
In addition to meeting the best team in the country, Navy was playing Army on a day when the Middies were having little luck. For only 38 seconds after the second half started Army had a fourth touchdown and it was 26-7. On the second play after Skippy Minisi returned the second-half kickoff, Smith attempted to pass to Bramlett, but Blanchard intercepted and ran 45 yards to score and put the game out of reach, even though Capt. Dick Duden blocked Walterhouse’s extra point try.
Navy wasn’t admitting defeat, though, and early in the fourth period the Middies had their second score when Davis, trapped behind his own line, undertook to invent a passing play.
Davis’ pass boomerangs
The aerial was complete, but the receiver was Navy’s Smith, who ran to Army’s 26. Here, taking their cue from their rivals, the Midshipmen struck hard and fast. Barron plunged 11 yards to the 15, Bartos hit the line for 12 and again for 2, then Bartos slammed across to make it 26-13.
The final touchdown was the only tainted score of the game and it followed when Army took the next kickoff. Navy drew a 15-yard roughness penalty, only such penalty of the game, and Army had a first down on its own 47. Then Davis tried a long pass to Blanchard, which was called complete when officials ruled that Barron interfered. The ball sailed far over the heads of both men, who simultaneously turned to find it. Blanchard fell into Barron and the crowd booed when the decision placed the ball on Navy’s 32.
There was nothing tainted about the rest of the march though, for after Davis was stopped and Blanchard picked up only three yards the ball was given to Davis again and this time he hopped and danced 29 yards to reach pay dirt. Walterhouse’s final miss kept it to 32-13 and what happened thereafter was anticlimax.
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Incredible read. I can’t even imagine the roar kf that crowd. The classic rivalry with their country finally out of war.
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