Choo Choo Justice: World War II Navy Phenom: Part III

*This is the third and final part of this series.

Part I

Part II

For His Introduction and Information On

– “Football! Navy! War!: How Military “Lend-Lease” Players

Saved the College Game and Helped Win World War II

– His memoir

The Day I Lost President Ford: Memoir of a

Born-and-Bred Carolina Tar Heel; and

– Previous Charlie Justice Columns, Click Here

Buildup heading into the 1944 Bainbridge season featured - of course - football’s new brand, Specialist(A)2nd/Class Charlie Justice. Furthermore, the media promoted expectations for a carbon-copy extension of the Commodores’ 1943 successes.

Plaudits and superlatives rained upon Justice, like this big one. The NCAA’s season preview publication reminded readers that “Charley [sic] ‘Choo Choo’ Justice, extraordinary youngster of Bainbridge ran wild in every game.”

In September, they scrimmaged the powerful Navy eleven, coming off an 8-1-0 year and No. 5 AP ranking. Justice showed the college boys by “dashing 60 yards to tally a Bainbridge score” to tie it. Days later against Camp Lee, he “picked up where he left off last year by scampering” for two 50-yard touchdowns on an interception and punt return without being touched.

In demolishing Camp Lejeune’s Marines 53-7 in early October, he was “the fleet-footed, shifty high school phenomenon.” The AP watched. Justice “already has made a down payment on a backfield spot on the 1944 all-service team.” Check these numbers: On seven carries he scored on runs of 83, 51, 50, and 32 yards. The others gained 34, 26, and 12. What running, what blocking.

The sailors’ station newspaper, The Mainsheet, couldn’t resist. “Standing on his own 17, ‘Choo Choo Charlie’ took a lateral and headed for the western sidelines. Apparently stopped at the line of scrimmage, he suddenly reversed his field, side stepping a half dozen enemy tacklers, broke into the clear and swept 83 yards. Don’t get the idea that this Lejeune team is any pushover even if the score was monstrous.” This Asheville mountain boy just took it to ‘em regardless.

The Baltimore Sun literally gushed/drooled over him. “The part they don’t tell you is his fire-eating love of football - he has been dressed and waiting in an empty dressing room three hours before a game - his ability to learn quickly from mistakes, his vicious blocking, good kicking and ability to shift directions on the dead run. Last year he was a David among a flock of [Goliaths]. He outshines such proven ball carriers” as his All-America teammates while playing limited snaps. “But when he’s in, there ain’t no justice.”

The Camden, N. J., professional team, leading the eastern league, lost 7-47. “Youthful Charley [sic] Justice again stole the show offensively” by scoring twice. Both sides bruised each other, creating 300 penalty yards. Justice booted three extra points but a penalty nullified each. Afterwards, head coach Joe Maniaci said, “He’s the greatest natural football player I’ve ever seen.”

(Let you in on a secret. At the time, the scoop was eventually he’s going to Duke. Yes, as the Baltimore Sun reported, Coach Eddie Cameron “is sleeping well because he has the inside track on the kid’s services after the war. Justice has told intimates, ‘It’s Duke for me.’”) We know how that turned out.

Dr. William Friday, the UNC System president emeritus, told me he saw Justice play Camp Peary in Williamsburg, Va. (Oooh, a 7-0 Bainbridge squeaker). “He put on quite a show. I believe he was wearing tennis shoes. His main contribution was punting, kept the opposition on the defensive all day.”

Friday continued. He was like Michael Jordan. No need to over-coach. “You just let them go. There was a quality of grace in their performance. He was one of those. He was given a gift. I can’t ever recall Charlie being called for any kind of penalty. He was a gentleman, a unique person.”

But not everything clicked. In edging Camp Peary in the return game, the soldiers “bottled up Justice throughout the afternoon” for only two rushing yards. Yes, two.

He fit in perfectly with much older veteran players. Recognizing something special, they opened holes for him and exploited his defensive savvy. In those days a team’s best players played on both sides of the ball.

The hype continued. Following the win over Maxwell Field, the AP trumpeted: “flashy Charlie Justice galloped around right end” to score. The Bainbridge newspaper echoed: “Justice Thorn in Maxwell’s Side.” For Maxwell, “there isn’t any Justice.” Played good defense too, “did about everything else but tote the water bucket.”

Justice’s first game in Kenan Stadium was on November 5 versus North Carolina Pre-Flight, a Navy program for prospective aviators situated at Carolina. Ranked No. 7 in the AP poll and the No. 1 military team and led by passing quarterback Otto Graham (Northwestern All-America), Pre-Flight already owned wins over big boys Duke and Navy. Bainbridge prevailed, 49-20, impressing the Greensboro Daily News: They “can beat any college eleven of the American gridiron.”

Playing but 10 minutes, he scored on a 65-yard (burlesque queen) “Sally Rand” naked reverse and led the team in yards gained. Teammates “hoisted Charlie on to big shoulders and carried him off the field to admiring cheers from the crowd.” He’d be back before long.

As the Commodores laid it on Camp Lejeune in their second game, 33-6, the matchup within the game generated perhaps the war’s classic football duel: Justice and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch. The iconic, high-profile future Pro Football Hall of Famer and wartime vagabond football star also played for Wisconsin, Michigan, and the El Toro (Calif.) Marine Corps Air Station.

“I was having a hot day,” said Justice. Amen. On a sweep, he cut back looking for space, found a lane, outfoxed Hirsch, the last defender, and roared 83 yards untouched for six points. The Lejeune newspaper got it right: “Justice Leads Way. The boy among men sprinted to his 12th, 13th, and 14th touchdowns of the season. More than lived up to his pre-game ballyhoo.” Seven carries, 145 yards, three touchdowns.

Justice earned second-team AP All-Service honors and with 14 touchdowns trailing only Army’s Glenn Davis (All-America, Heisman Trophy runner-up) with 20 as 1944's top touchdown maker. The AP ranked Bainbridge No. 5 in its final poll. While playing only 10 minutes per game, he led the two-year unbeaten teams in scoring (21 touchdowns) and yards rushing (80 for 1,011) while wearing jersey numbers 3, 9, and 23.

Bainbridge played all military teams (except Camden) and took the Navy military championship at 10-0-0. Along with Army champion Randolph Field (Tex.), the two headed more than 100 service teams “that fulfilled their primary mission of entertaining as many of Uncle Sam’s servicemen as possible.” Final points: 331-70.

Earlier, wife Sarah moved to the Washington area to be near him and worked at the Bainbridge station making recruit portraits. In 1944, the Navy wanted to send Justice to the Naval Academy but tore up his orders after learning of the marriage. Only single men allowed.

In 1945, Justice joined other athletes in Hawaii to prepare for the invasion of Japan. Naturally, they were expected to play a little organized football in their spare time. Biographers Bob Quincy and Julian Scheer wrote that his fame on stateside shore duty embarrassed a Navy at war.

By football season, Japan had surrendered. He played several games with a group of Honolulu-area Navy all-stars, one before 45,000, alongside Duke greats George McAfee and Steve Lach. In his final game his team lost to some San Francisco Marines. Thus, he closed his wartime service leading trainees in physical education and playing football.

More than 250 colleges wanted Justice after the war. The Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins and Boston Yanks offered contracts. He settled on Carolina, but on one condition. They struck a deal. He would attend on the GI Bill if UNC gave Sarah his scholarship. That worked. She attended classes two years before leaving to care for their first child. During my obituary interview, she related this story to me about how she went to Carolina on a football scholarship, hardly a media secret. Do THI readers know this? Anyway, she just might be the school’s only such woman.

Carolina teammates responded to his death. Robert Koontz said the Navy positively influenced Justice and gave him a tremendous amount of experience that served him well. Joe Augustine remembered everyone was looking for something to rally around during the war, and in North Carolina, Justice became the man.

Justice had remembered what really mattered. “They tell us we football players contributed to morale. I’m no hero. I’m lucky. Most of the guys I started with for gunnery school were lost in the Pacific.”

As Justice left the Navy, a coach said: “Calling him a freshman football player when he enters college is like calling Joe Louis a promising young fighter.” Justice “became the most highly discussed talent ever to pass from high school to college, via a three-year layoff.”

These columns have been about the wartime Justice. But readers might enjoy these lighthearted postwar lookbacks through Orville Campbell and Hank Beebe’s hit song “All the Way Choo Choo,” and Mayberry actor Andy Griffth’s comical ditty, “What It Was, Was Football.” (Am I the only one who remembers Griffth’s cow pasture and its pies not to be stepped on?)

On his death, UNC Athletic Director Dick Baddour resonated for all Tar Heel friends and fans. “Charlie Justice was one of the most beloved people in the history of this great university. A true Carolina icon. There was only one Charlie Justice, not only because of his football feats, but because of his humility, devotion to his family and teammates and his love for Carolina.”

For further information: Recommended book sources I used in writing “Football! Navy! War!” include:

– Quincy, Bob, and Julian Scheer. Choo Choo: The Charlie Justice Story. Chapel Hill, N. C.: Bentley Publishing, 1958;

– Rappaport, Ken. Tar Heel: North Carolina Football. Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1976; and

– Terrell, Bob. All Aboard Choo Choo Justice. Alexander , N. C.: Alexander Books, 1996.

Tar Heel Illustrated thanks our guest columnist, Wilbur D. Jones, Jr., for his series on the World War II playing days of Carolina football immortal Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice, which begins today.

A Wilmington, N. C., native and resident, Jones is military historian and the nationally known award-winning author of 18 books, including seven on WWII. He has written or contributed to hundreds of pieces for the Wilmington StarNews and other periodicals, and leads the 12-year project seeking national designation of Wilmington as the first “American WWII Heritage City.”

He is a former assistant and advance representative to President Gerald Ford, a retired Navy Captain, and served the Department of Defense for 41 years.

He graduated from Carolina in 1955. His newest book, The Day I Lost President Ford: Memoir of a Born-and-Bred Carolina Tar Heel, will be published this summer and contains remembrances playing UNC varsity lacrosse and soccer and as Monogram Club president.

This Justice series is based on his book, “Football! Navy! War!”: How Military ‘Lend-Lease’ Players Saved the College Game and Helped Win World War II (Foreword by ESPN’s Beano Cook). See www.wilburjones.com.

Also, I’m proud to say he’s my father. - Andrew Jones