In this Dec. 7, 1941, file photo, smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks during a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Army Pfc. George Allen was on K-P duty peeling potatoes at the Pearl Harbor naval base. Little did Allen, now a 94-year old Bradley County resident, know that he had a front-row seat to the outbreak of World War II – or that the Willamettte Bearcats who had just played football against the University of Hawaii Warriors would be caught in the tumult.
At the end of their 1941 season, Willamette University players left Salem, Ore., to compete in Honolulu’s Shrine Bowl in a round robin with the San Jose State Spartans and the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. The Willamette party boarded the luxury liner Lurline in San Francisco on Nov. 27. Besides lacking a stadium, the Bearcats’ squad of only 28 players had to play both offense and defense but won seven of its eight seasonal games.
The trip over was “a pretty rough crossing. Some of the guys lost a lot of weight . I think I ate only one meal that I was able to keep down the whole time on the ship,” commented one player. Having left Oregon in near-freezing weather, the young men were not ready for the 80-degree temperature in Hawaii.
A capacity crowd of 24,000, one-tenth of the local population, filled Honolulu Stadium for the first game of the Bearcats against the Warriors. A fullback from the mainland reflected, “It was a hard-fought game. They were bigger than we were, but we played them well for about three quarters. We actually scored first, but then they pulled away in the final period. We still had our sea legs. Some of us were seasick coming over. It was warm, and we just ran out of gas.” Hawaii’s Warriors beat the Williamette Bearcats 20-6.
On the next morning, Dec. 7, some Willamette players had planned picnics while others were looking forward to a bus trip to the North Shore or a visit to the Pearl Harbor naval base. A co-captain reflected that they “were sitting on the lanai of the Moana Hotel (10 miles from Pearl Harbor) having breakfast and watching the giant spouts of water going up in the ocean. He told his team he thought the Navy was having maneuvers. Then all hell broke loose.”