The Mosquito Bowl
A Game of Life and Death in World War II
-
-
4.1 • 196 Ratings
-
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
Instant New York Times Bestseller · Winner of the General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation
“Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and profound. This book too is destined to become a classic. I devoured it.” — John Grisham
An extraordinary, untold story of the Second World War in the vein of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, from the author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war – the invasion of Okinawa—their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled: Former All Americans, captains from Wisconsin and Brown and Notre Dame, and nearly twenty men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL.
When the trash-talking between the 4th and 29th over who had the better football team reached a fever pitch, it was decided: The two regiments would play each other in a football game as close to the real thing as you could get in the dirt and coral of Guadalcanal. The bruising and bloody game that followed became known as “The Mosquito Bowl.”
Within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in “The Mosquito Bowl” would be killed at Okinawa, by far the largest number of American athletes ever to die in a single battle. The Mosquito Bowl is the story of these brave and beautiful young men, those who survived and those who did not. It is the story of the families and the landscape that shaped them. It is a story of a far more innocent time in both college athletics and the life of the country, and of the loss of that innocence.
Writing with the style and rigor that won him a Pulitzer Prize and have made several of his books modern classics, Buzz Bissinger takes us from the playing fields of America’s campuses where boys played at being Marines, to the final time they were allowed to still be boys on that field of dirt and coral, to the darkest and deadliest days that followed at Okinawa.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Unsung heroes are honored with respect and admiration in this riveting history of a near-forgotten moment of World War II. Friday Night Lights author and journalist Buzz Bissinger recounts the story of young marines who played one glorious day of football during the war that cost many of them their lives. College football fame had offered them careers in the game they loved. Instead, the war took them to the South Pacific and ultimately the deadly Battle of Okinawa. Bissinger masterfully recreates the excitement of the big game, so newsworthy that it was carried on Armed Forces Radio and made the papers back home. The unsparing descriptions of battle are as harrowing as the men’s personal details are touching. Letters between one marine and his nine-year-old pen pal made us smile, while the love notes of another soldier and his fiancée made us weep. This book is a must for football lovers and World War II history buffs—but it’s a fascinating read for anyone.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) effortlessly combines sports and military history in this gritty account of a football game played by U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal in December 1944. Noting that no other branch of the military attracted more college gridiron stars, Bissinger spotlights, among others, Notre Dame captain George Murphy and the University of Wisconsin's two-time All-American end, David Schreiner. After months of trash-talking between these and other former collegiate football players in the 4th and 29th regiments of the 6th Marine Division on Guadalcanal, the two sides squared off on the parade ground in T-shirts and dungarees, playing a hard-fought game that devolved into a bloody brawl among the "dirt and pebbles and shards of coral." The football action is vivid but brief, as the game turned out to be "two hours of life that turned into death several months later," when 15 of the 65 Marines who played in the Mosquito Bowl were killed and 20 more wounded during the Battle of Okinawa. The book excels in its sweeping yet fine-grained portraits of how these Marines got to Guadalcanal and in the harrowing descriptions of Pacific Theater combat, including the bloody fight for Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa. This is a penetrating tale of courage and sacrifice.
Customer Reviews
Riviting
Personalizes war in unique way. It takes readers from football fields to the horrors of the Okinawa campaign.
Terrific
Magnificent, heartbreaking story of young men with their lives ahead of themselves in a ferocious battle with a worthy adversary. Shatters myths and stereotypes.
A Tribute to the futility and waste of war
How can one describe the horrors of the Pacific battles without rendering a bleak and disturbing picture. The author does so impeccably.