World War II Chronicle: February 6, 1942
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On page 3 we see that Gen. Robert E. Lee’s godchild has died. Virginia Lee Stevens was the daughter of Virginia governor John Letcher. He husband Walter taught physics at Washington and Lee University, which was just named Washington College, (after the first president and major benefactor George Washington) until after the Civil War when Gen. Lee was named the school’s president… War Dept. communique no. 93 is on page 4… If a German family has already lost several sons in combat the Wehrmacht will reassign the last surviving son from the Eastern Front (page 6)… Poems written by John Gillespie Magee, an American volunteer pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force, are on display at the Library of Congress (page 32). Pilot Officer Magee was killed in December when his Spitfire collided with another airplane in mid-air during training…
Sports section begins on page 48, which briefly mentions that Frankie Albert is about to join the Navy. After winning just one game in 1939 the Stanford Indians hired former University of Chicago coach Clark Shaughnessy. Chicago was one of the founding members of the Big Ten Conference, but they decided to drop their football program after the 1939 season. Shaughnessy implemented the “T” formation, where the quarterback takes the snap directly from the center (as opposed to the halfback or tailback).
The T needed the right players to work. Shaughnessy never had that while at Chicago, but he inherited the optimal backfield of Albert, Norm Standlee, Hugh Gallarneau, and Pete Kmetovic (the third-overall pick of the 1942 draft) when he came to Stanford. Stanford went undefeated in 1940 and beat Biff Jones’ Nebraska Corhuskers in the 1941 Rose Bowl. Albert finished fourth in Heisman voting in 1940 and third in 1941, earning All-American honors both years. He serves as an aviation officer in the South Pacific then goes on to become play quarterback for the All-America Football Conference’s San Francisco 49ers, which joined the NFL in 1950.
Standlee, Gallarneau, and Kmetovic all played in the NFL after serving in the war.
Also on page 48 is Syl Johnson, a 42-year-old Seattle Rainiers pitcher who is beginning his 23rd professional season. Johnson began his major league career in 1922 and pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals during the famous “Gashouse Gang” era. Johnson played his last big league ballgame in 1940 but will pitch in the minors until 1946.