The All Americans

By Lars Anderson

Book Overview

On November 29, 1941, Army played Navy in front of 100,000 fans. Eight days later, the Japanese attacked and the young men who battled each other in that historic game were forced to fight a very different enemy. Author Lars Anderson follows four players-two from Annapolis and two from West Point-in this epic true story.Bill Busik. Growing up in Pasadena, California, Busik was best friends with a young black man named Jackie, who in 1947 would make Major League Baseball history. Busik would have a spectacular sports career himself at the Naval Academy, earning All-American honors as a tailback in 1941. He was serving aboard the U.S.S. Shaw when it was attacked by Japanese dive-bombers in 1943.Hal Kauffman. Together, Busik and Kauffman rode a train across the nation to Annapolis to enroll in the Naval Academy. A backup tailback at Navy, Kauffman would go on to serve aboard the U.S.S. Meredith, which was sunk in 1942. For five days Kauffman struggled to stay alive on a raft, fighting off hallucinations, dehydration, and-most terrifying of all-sharks. Dozens of his crewmates lost their minds; others were eaten by sharks. All the while Kauffman wondered if he'd ever see his friend and teammate again.Henry Romanek. Because he had relatives in Poland, Romanek heard firsthand accounts in 1939 of German aggression. Wanting to become an officer, Romanek attended West Point and played tackle for the Cadets. He spent months preparing for the D-day invasion and on June 6, 1944 - the day he would have graduated from West Point had his course load not been cut from four years to three-Romanek rode in a landing craft to storm Omaha Beach. In the first wave to hit the beach he would also become oneof the first to take a bullet.Robin Olds. The son of a famous World War I fighter pilot, Olds decided to follow in his father's footsteps. At West Point he became best friends with Romanek and the two played side-by-side on Army's line. In 1942, a sportswriter Grantland Rice named Olds to his All-American team. Two years later Olds spent D-day flying a P-38 over Omaha Beach, anxiously scanning the battlefield for Romanek, hoping his friend would survive the slaughter.20The tale of these four men is woven into a dramatic narrative of football and war that's unlike any other. Through extensive research and interviews with dozens of World War II veterans, Anderson has written one of the most compelling and original true stories in all of World War II literature. From fierce fighting, heroic rescues, tragic death, and awe-inspiring victory, all four men's suspenseful journeys are told in graphic detail. Along the way, Anderson brings World War II to life ina way that has never been done before.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312308876
• ISBN13: 9780312308872
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A Special Treat!

I stumbled across this book when my grandfather suddenly started talking about his time in WWII about one year ago. Now age 87, he told me during one interview that he was an amphibious and compat engineer in the 149th Engineer & Combat Battalion. After learning that one of the star characters in this book, Henry Romanek, was a commander in the 149th Battalion, I purchased this book to learn more. Soon after, I noticed a name hand-written on my grandfather's military reunion mailing list -- Henry Romanek. To my amazement, the story that unfolded through Henry's eyes was very similar to the story my grandfather had been telling me in pieces throughout 2009. Once I received the book, I couldn't put it down. The first-hand accounts of the soldiers from football field to battlefield were very thorough and told in such a way that opened up my eyes even more to what these servicemen gave for their country. I felt like I got to know each and every one of the individuals, which can certainly be a hard thing to do when researching people with whom you don't know well or whom you have never met. The author did a nice job of telling the stories of the four gentleman through their eyes, through their own stories. Stories that may have never been told had he not interviewed them and wrote this book. I would highly recommend this book to others. It is full of life lessons in determination, relationship-building, teamwork, etc. I will forever view this period in history differently after spending over a year conducting my own research and by reading this book. It is something that many young people today should take time to reflect on and learn more about.

Not your everyday All-Americans

This is a marvelous book. Traditional in many respects as a well-deserved recognition of those who fought in World War II, the extra element of the All-American football hero perspective makes "The All-Americans" special. This book almost came too late. It was nice to have it published before several of these true heroes passed on to the final reward that too many of their team mates experienced sixty years too soon. Anderson, a Sports Illustrated staff writer, takes us from the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 back five years, to the arrival of Robin Olds, Henry Romanek, Hal Kauffman and Bill Busik at West Point and Annapolis. Anderson catalogs their years as plebes and burgeoning football stars, back in a time when Army and navy were true football powerhouses, tickets to the Army-Navy game cost $4.40 (a lot of money in those days, but nothing like the million dollar box seats sold for the 1945 game), radio was the primary live medium for transmission, and television was a nascent, close-circuit affair (some paid $2 for the broadcast to theaters in Philadelphia). The November 1941 Army-Navy game, eight days before the Pearl harbor attack, is the focal event, the last gasp of innocence before the all-too-expected war commenced. Anderson has elicited long-buried yet vivid memories of practices, plays and heroics, first at play and then at war. German pillboxes, Japanese fighter planes and bloodthirsty sharks made life miserable for these former football stars; they used their discipline, smarts and perseverance to carry them through some very rough times. Romanek survived a bullet wound on June 6, 1944 and Kauffman had perhaps the most harrowing experience: surviving sharks and three days of drifting after having his ship suck in the South Pacific. Busik and Olds, by comparison, got off pretty easy. F the twenty-two starters of the 1941 Army-Navy game, four died in the war and more than a dozen reserves died in the service in those four years following that apocalyptic game. Read it to recognize and honor a few more entries in the cast of the greatest generation.

The All Americans

The All Americans by Lars Anderson is the story of two cadets attending West Point, and two mid shipmen attending Annapolis right before and right after Pearl Harbor. The backdrop for the story is the yearly Army-Navy game and what that game meant to these young men and others like them who had attended the service academies before them. The juxtaposition of world events leading up to WWII and culminating with these four men's, and many of their classmates experiences during the war, makes this an interesting read for any WWII buff. These men had to finish their college careers in three years so that they could be rushed off to war and none of them shirked their responsibilities. The only shortcoming of the book is that there is no index which makes it very difficult if you want to go back and check something out. That aside, the book is an enjoyable, easy, quick read about members of the "Greatest Generation" and I highly recommend it.