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 Author  Topic: George Halas
Alamo Scout

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 4:23am
Also need help locating which boat George Halas--the owner of the Chicago Bears--was skipper of in WWII. Thanks!

Lance

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BobPic

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 6:27am
I don't think George Halas ever commanded a PT Boat. He was in the Navy and was conspicuous around various installations, organizing sports and upping morale. Since he was born in 1895, he was an old man at WW2 time. He was a boat fancier and had naval experience but I don't believe as a PT boat skipper.


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  Gary Paulsen

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Gary Paulsen   Send Email To Gary Paulsen Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 7:29am
Found this on the internet. "After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many of the dominant NFL players joined the military, and the sport of professional football took a back seat to United States involvement in World War II. In mid 1942 Halas re-enlisted in the Navy as a lieutenant commander. He served in the South Pacific and was promoted to full commander; he returned on Thanksgiving Day 1945. The team failed to make the playoffs during his absence." No mention of PT boat service.


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Alamo Scout

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 7:34am
Bob & Gary, Thanks for your efforts. I really don't know a lot about Halas's navy service. I contacted the Chicago Bears PR Dept, but they're better at running around than the team's halfbacks are! Last year I posted a story on this board written by Henry McLemore in which he recounts being on a boat with Halas and a team of Alamo Scouts, but the mission was scrubbed at the last minute. Just trying to located the boat--if any. Thanks again!

Lance

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Alamo Scout

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 7:42am
Guys, FYI: Here's the story that appeared in the Syracuse Herald (NY) on November 9, 1945. The event likely occurred sometime during 20-24 August 1944 (See explanation at end of article).

Mac Made Bears’ Coach
Before Escape in Jungle By Henry McLemore

Many honors have come to me in my lifetime. I was made a Kentucky colonel. I was made a Colorado admiral. I was made an infantry buck private. These honors I have mentioned before, but the honor I prize the most will see the light of day right now. Just a little more than a year ago I was made a lifetime coach of the Chicago Bears football team. Salary: $1 a year. I was signed by Com. George Halas, owner of the Bears, on a PT boat that was riding the swells just off a tip of Jap-held New Guinea.
It was 3 o’clock of a moonless morning, and the commander and I were readying ourselves to go ashore with a group of Alamo Scouts. The Chief Alamo Scout had already put in a call for our transportation. With the lights of Jap campfires blinking from the nearby shore, he had blown a bird call on a conch shell. It had been answered, and we knew that in half an hour or so our transportation would arrive. It would be friendly headhunters, gliding softly across the water in outrigger canoes. The mission of the scouts was to hide in the bush near the crossing of two important trails, and study Jap troop movements.

PT Pickup Arranged

Crouched on the prow of the PT, the chief scout, who wasn’t at all enthusiastic about taking Halas and me along, briefed us on what to do in case the Japs discovered us after we had landed. “If they hop us,” he said, “don’t, no matter what happens, go deeper in the jungle to hide. You’ll never get out. Make for the beach somewhere near where we’ll land. Then make for the little tip of land about a mile south. When you get there you’ll be able to see a little island. It’s about a mile out. Swim to that island. It is a rendezvous point. In two or three days a PT boat will come and pick you up. Understand?” The scout left and Halas turned to me and whispered: “Can you swim a mile, Henry?”
“Hell, no,” George answered. As he answered, a silver streak flashed through the water close to the PT’s side. Then another. Then another.
We turned to a sailor.
“What’s that stuff in the water?” Halas asked.
“Sharks,” the sailor said. “The water’s full of ‘em.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute. Then we talked and made a pact.

Shark Bait? No Thanks!
If, when we get ashore, the Japs discovered us, we were going to head into the jungle, the chief scout’s advice to the contrary.
“If we couldn’t swim a mile in a swimming pool back home,” Halas argued soundly, “what would be the sense in getting out in the Pacific and have the sharks eat us up? You know, I am going to make you an assistant coach of the Bears right now. At one buck a year. The way it looks now, I am going to be coaching the Bears from the New Guinea jungle, and I’ll need some help.”
Then the outrigger canoes came up, like phantoms. Dozens of squat, bushy-haired little ape-like men clambered noiselessly over the side of the PT. The natives and the scouts held a conference. The chief scout who had briefed us came back to us.
“Commander, I have a disappointment for you and the sergeant,” he whispered. “We won’t be able to land tonight. Any of us. The natives tell me the Japs are in there by the thousands. We’ll have to come back some other night. Sorry.”
Halas and I looked at one another, shook hands, and heaved a double sight that rocked the outrigger canoes on the water, almost upsetting them.
The next night, safely back on the island of Woendi PT base, we ran into Bob Hope. We kept Bob up until 3 o’clock in the morning—30 minutes earlier than his accustomed bedtime--telling him of our bravery.

Note: Hope and his troupe performed at Woendi Island on August 25, 1944. SUMNER Team was there for the show and had just completed a mission on Pegun Island. LITTLEFIELD and CHANLEY Teams were also there at that time, but it is likely that McGOWEN Team was the culprit!

Lance
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Alamo Scouts Association

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Michael

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Michael   Send Email To Michael Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 11:37am
Found this on the Navy Log site,no mention of PT but.
Cheers

http://spg.navymemorial.org/individual.aspx?&navy_log_id=1032461

also this one

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1299

Michael

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TED WALTHER

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of TED WALTHER   Send Email To TED WALTHER Posted on: Nov 24, 2009 - 12:03pm
Lance;
Here is a photo for you.
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51539497/Hulton-Archive
Take care,
TED


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Alamo Scout

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Nov 29, 2009 - 7:23am
Michael and Ted,

Thanks guys for the great leads. As they say, all roads lead somewhere! Hope you had a great T-giving.

Lance

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