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The Mosquito Bowl summary

Name: The Mosquito Bowl
Author: Buzz Bissinger

Buzz Bissinger

A Game of Life and Death in World War II

16 mins

Topics

US History European History Wars Sports

Table of Contents

The Mosquito Bowl
Summary of 6 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Learn about some of America’s most famous athletes of the 1940s who sacrificed their fame, sport, and lives during World War II.

College football was at a peak of popularity when it was interrupted by war in the 1940s. Some players got drafted, others were transferred to new schools as part of a military training program. By 1944, a bizarre twist of fate put more than 50 former college football players in two Marine regiments and landed them on the same Pacific island.

It didn’t take long for the trash-talking and bickering to begin – which regiment would win in a football game? Improbably, the argument was resolved in an actual game, the eponymous Mosquito Bowl. It was played on a field of dirt and coral with the grim prospect of war looming over all, but it was a chance for these young men to bask in the joy of their favorite game before facing the horrors of battle.

Buzz Bissinger’s The Mosquito Bowl details the lives, and deaths, of dozens of athletes, soldiers, and their families. They came from all over the United States – from Midwestern immigrants to the New England elite – to navigate the traumas and trials of World War II. This Blink focuses on four of the young men who star in this gripping story of football, war, and America.

A note before we begin: This Blink contains some graphic descriptions of war. Please take care while reading.

Fables and Football

It was 1904 when Blaz Butkovich left Croatia and his tiny hometown in the rolling forests, a place of fables and faeries. He crossed the Atlantic, passed through the dizzying turnstile of Ellis Island, and continued on to Illinois coal country. That’s where his own fable, a classic tale of immigrants in America, takes root.

Blaz worked in the brutal conditions of the coal mines. He faced America’s hatred of new immigrants. The country was so opposed to newcomers it banned most of them with 1924’s Immigration Act. But Blaz and his wife had the support of others enduring the same experience. Their neighborhood in St. David, Illinois, had families from Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Croatia. Their seven sons all took up sports, the three youngest were even good enough to earn scholarships at major universities.

Tony, second from the youngest, was the best athlete among the Butkovich brothers. He was a three-sport legend at Lewiston High School and went to the University of Illinois to play football. His first two years there were a struggle, but in 1943 the college football landscape was turned on its head as players in the V-12 Navy College Training Program moved from school to school. Other military branches thought football should be put on hold as the country prepared for World War II, but the Navy believed the sport was ideal preparation for combat.

Butkovich was part of the V-12 program which also included Marine Reserves. He was transferred from Illinois to Purdue University where he finally lived up to his potential. A speedy running back, Butkovich led the team in scoring and yards. Purdue was 6-0 and ranked No. 4 in the country when Butkovich was called into service by the Marines. He was such a star that the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Baltimore Sun all carried the news. He played one last game before leaving Purdue for basic training. On the final carry of his college career, Tony Butkovich scored a touchdown to break the Big 10 conference scoring record.

He was the No. 11 overall pick in the April 1944 NFL Draft, but Butkovich was already doing push-ups on Parris Island by then. He failed the academic portion of his officer exams but that didn’t stop the Corps from using him as a recruiting tool. Before shipping off to action in the Pacific, Butkovich and 10 other college football stars turned Marines posed in uniform for a public relations photo titled, “Grid Greats on Uncle Sam’s Team.”

Virtue in Wisconsin, Racism in the Military

A year before Tony Butkovich was called into marine service, two other college football stars from the Midwest traveled to Quantico, Virginia, to begin Marine Corps officer training – Dave Schreiner and Bob Bauman from the University of Wisconsin.

Schreiner was from a family of German immigrants who found prosperity in Lancaster, Wisconsin. He was humble and unfailingly honest. As a pre-med major, he wasn’t eligible to be drafted until the spring of 1943, but when he changed his major in the summer of 1942, he dutifully reported the switch to the Selective Service. Miraculously, he still didn’t get drafted, and that fall was named a First Team All-American after leading Wisconsin to its best-ever record, 8-1-1. Bauman, whose brother Frank played with Butkovich at Illinois, was a starting tackle and the punter on that great 1942 Wisconsin team.

Learning Hard Lessons from Island to Island

Disorganized bureaucracy and institutional racism weren’t the only problems for the US Military during World War II. There was also the strategic dilemma of reaching Japan via the “island hopping” technique. The Marines’ very survival depended on amphibious assault, but their methods were untested and unsound.

Thousands of American Marines discovered that the hard way on November 20, 1943, when the Marines attacked the tiny islet of Betio in the Tarawa atoll. The operation had flaws from start to finish. Leaders misjudged unpredictable tides. Poorly designed landing vehicles got stuck on the coral. Marines wading through chest-deep water were pulled down by their equipment and became easy targets. The naval and aerial bombing was late and inadequate. The Japanese soldiers and their defenses were more sophisticated and effective than expected.

The Mosquito Bowl

It’s 1944. The 29th Regiment is also on Guadalcanal and loaded with former college football players, including Tony Butkovich. They have lots of downtime on the island and that leads to wild boar hunts, distilling moonshine, and arguing over which regiment would win in a football game, McLaughry’s 4th or Butkovich’s 29th.

The drunken debates are organized into a plan for an actual game between the two regiments on December 24, 1944. Originally they name it the All-Star Classic, but it’s dubbed the Mosquito Bowl thanks to the Guadalcanal radio station, which is called the Mosquito Network.

The Battle for Okinawa

It’s three months after the Mosquito Bowl and the 6th Marine Division, which includes both the 4th and 29th Regiments, leaves Guadalcanal for Okinawa, the final island before the Japanese homeland. McLaughry and Schreiner are in the first landing parties when the Marines arrive on April 1, 1945. It feels like an April Fool’s joke when they find the Okinawan beaches undefended, but the Japanese are there. A force of 100,000 is hiding in a network of tunnels and pillboxes further inland, and they’re preparing hell for the Marines.

The Americans use flamethrowers and flame-throwing tanks to burn the Japanese out of their caves. The weapons spray a mixture of napalm and gasoline that bounces off walls and around corners, sticks to skin, and burns through muscle and bone. The Japanese launch kamikaze attacks, sinking 26 ships on April 6 and 7 alone. Both sides commit atrocities against each other and the 300,000 native Okinawans still on the island. Rape, torture, dead children, and mangled bodies are the norm. Maggots breed in the corpses littered everywhere.

Final Summary

As many as 250,000 people were killed in the 82 days of fighting at Okinawa. One thousand, six hundred and twenty-two Marines from the 6th Division were killed in the action, including 551 from the 29th Regiment, the most from any Marine regiment in a single operation in World War II.

The same day Dave Schreiner was killed, John McLaughry had a late-night encounter with Japanese soldiers. He took grenade fragments in his leg and his jaw, but he survived. To no one’s surprise, he became a football coach when he returned to the US, at Union College, Amherst College, and eventually back home at Brown University.

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What is The Mosquito Bowl about?

The Mosquito Bowl (2022) tells the story of American football stars going to war and playing one more game when they get there. It details a nation divided by bigotry but united by sport and a common enemy.

Who should read The Mosquito Bowl?

History buffs
World War II aficionados
College football fans

About the Author

Buzz Bissinger is the author of six books. He’s best known for Friday Night Lights which has sold nearly two million copies and inspired a movie and television series. He won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting while working at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a sports writer for the Daily Beast. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, and Time magazine amongst others.

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