Roger Morris’s scrapbook), and mentioned in Ulbrickson’s logbook on May 18, 1936. Their increasingly impressive times are also noted in the logbook throughout this period.
Beginning with their departure for Poughkeepsie, we begin to get firsthand accounts of events in the journals of three of the boys: Johnny White, Chuck Day, and, later, Roger Morris. The race strategy for Poughkeepsie, hatched on the train trip east and reported by George Varnell in “Varnell Says: New Tactics for U.W. Plan,” ST, June 13, 1936, is important partly for how little regard Bobby Moch paid to it in the actual event. Details of the atmosphere in the shell house at Poughkeepsie and other events leading up to the regatta are drawn from a wide variety of news reports, cited individually in the online version of the notes. Bob Moch describes the almost mystical night row on the Hudson in “Washington Rowing: 100+ Year History,” on Eric Cohen’s website: https://huskycrew.com/1930.htm.
Facts pertaining to the Louis-Schmeling fight are drawn from James P. Dawson, “Schmeling Stops Louis in Twelfth as 45,000 Look On,” NYT, June 20, 1936, and “Germany Acclaims Schmeling as National Hero for Victory Over Louis,” NYT, June 21, 1936. The trouble in Harlem that night is reported in “Harlem Disorders Mark Louis Defeat,” NYT, June 20, 1936, as is the celebrating in German American neighborhoods. Goebbels’s “the white man prevailed” is quoted from his diary entry for June 20, 1936.
The account of the visit to Hyde Park is derived mostly from a letter from Shorty Hunt to his family, published in the Puyallup Press, June 25, 1936, under the title “Local Youth Meets Son of President on Visit to Hyde Park.”
Washington’s 1936 varsity win at Poughkeepsie was one of the great crew races of all time. My account of it is drawn from a large number of sources, of which these are the most important: Robert F. Kelley’s “Rowing Fans Pour into Poughkeepsie for Today’s Regatta,” NYT, June 22, 1936, and “Washington Gains Sweep in Regatta at Poughkeepsie,” NYT, June 23, 1936; Ed Alley, “Ulbrickson’s Mighty Western Crew Defeats Defending Golden Bears,” Poughkeepsie Star-Enterprise, June 23, 1936; Hugh Bradley, “Bradley Says: ’Keepsie Regatta Society Fete with Dash of Coney Too,” NYP, June 23, 1936; Harry Cross, “Washington Sweeps Poughkeepsie Regatta as Varsity Beats California by One Length,” HT, June 23, 1936; “Husky Crews Take Three Races at Poughkeepsie,” PI, June 23, 1936; James A. Burchard, “Varsity Coxswain Hero of Huskies’ Sweep of Hudson,” New York World-Telegram, June 23, 1936; “Huskies Sweep All Three Races on Hudson,” PI, June 23, 1936; Malcolm Roy, “Washington Sweeps Hudson,” New York Sun, June 23, 1936; Herbert Allan, “Moch Brains Enable Husky Brawn to Score First ’Keepsie Sweep,” NYP, June 23, 1936; and Royal Brougham, “U.W. Varsity Boat Faces Games Test,” PI, June 23, 1936. Jim McMillin is the source of his comment about breathing through his nose, as recorded in his November 2004 interview with Michael Socolow; Hazel Ulbrickson’s account is from the video “U of W Crew—The Early Years,” cited above, as is Bob Moch’s “Go to hell, Syracuse” remark. A few additional details are from Johnny White’s journal.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Pocock quote can be found in Newell (156). The first mention of Don Hume fighting some kind of “nasty cold” appears in George Varnell, “Shells Late in Arriving; Drill Due Tomorrow,” ST, July 1, 1936, six full weeks before the gold medal race in Berlin. The boys’ mounting anxiety and difficulty sleeping are chronicled in White’s and Day’s journals beginning on July 4. Their victory in the final race at Princeton is chronicled in “Washington’s Huskies Berlin Bound After Crew Win at Princeton,” Trenton Evening Times, July 6, 1936; Harry Cross, “Washington Crew Beats Penn by Sixty Feet and Wins Olympic Final on Lake Carnegie,” New York Herald Tribune, July 6, 1936; Robert F. Kelley, “Splendid Race Establishes Washington Crew as U.S. Olympic Standard Bearer,” NYT, July 6, 1936; George Varnell, “Huskies Win with Ease Over Penn, Bears, and N.Y.A.C,” ST, July 6, 1936; and Royal Brougham, “Huskies Win Olympic Tryouts in Record Time,” PI, July 6, 1936. Additional details are from Johnny White’s journal, George A. Hodak’s 1988 interview with Gordon Adam cited above, and one of several letters Shorty Hunt began to write home at this time, reprinted in the Puyallup Valley Tribune, July 10, 1936. Joyce took great delight in reliving for Judy her memories of listening to the Princeton race that day and her pride at the moment when she realized that Joe would be going to the Olympics. Bob Moch is the source of the mention of a tug-of-war over the silver cup in his November 2004 interview with Michael Socolow. George Pocock’s “Coming from Al” comment can be found in Newell (101).
The crisis over the shortage of funds for Berlin and the subsequent drive to raise money in Seattle are documented in a series of articles in the Seattle press over the next few days; see the online notes. Statistics regarding the terrible heat wave of 1936 are primarily from “Mercury Hits 120, No Rain in Sight as Crops Burn in the Drought Area,” NYT, July 8, 1936, and “130 Dead in Canada as Heat Continues,” NYT, July 12, 1936. The boys’ stay at Travers Island and their excursions are chronicled in the journals of Johnny White and Chuck Day, as well as in the continuing series of letters that Shorty Hunt wrote home. Joe’s trip to the top of the Empire State Building made a large impression on him, and the feelings he had there about the upcoming trip were something he shared often with Judy, who in turn shared them with me. Marilynn Moch explained the contents of the letter Bob Moch received from his father, and his reaction to it, in my interviews with her. Much of the description of loading the Husky Clipper onto the Manhattan is from George Pocock’s “Memories.” Other details of those final hours in New York are from Day’s and White’s journals.
The 1936 U.S. Olympic team consisted of 382 individuals, but not all were aboard the Manhattan. Some of the details concerning the history and construction of the Manhattan are from “S.S. Manhattan & S.S. Washington,” Shipping Wonders of the World, no. 22 (1936). My account of the departure is based in part on “United States Olympic Team Sails for Games Amid Rousing Send-Off,” NYT, July 16, 1936.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The epigraph is from Newell (79). For more on the Olympic preparations in Berlin, see Walters, Berlin Games (164–65); Brendon, Dark Valley (522); Bach, Leni (177); and Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 143–44. Additional details are from The XIth Olympic Games: Official Report. For Riefenstahl’s preparations, I have relied primarily on her own account in her memoir, cited above.
For my description of life on the Manhattan, I have drawn from Joe’s recollections and a letter Shorty Hunt wrote home, published in the Puyallup Press, July 31, 1936. Day’s and White’s journals also offered many interesting tidbits. Other facts are from George Pocock’s “Memories”; Arthur J. Daley, “Athletes Give Pledge to Keep Fit,” NYT, July 16, 1936; and M. W. Torbet, “United States Lines Liner S.S. Manhattan: Description and Trials,” Journal of the American Society for Naval Engineers 44, no. 4 (November 1932): 480–519. Al Ulbrickson tells the anecdote about Jim McMillin and the pancakes in “Now! Now! Now!” Collier’s, June 26, 1937.
My sources for the Eleanor Holm incident include The Report of the American Olympic Committee: Games of the XIth Olympiad (New York: American Olympic Committee, 1937), 33; Day’s and White’s journals; “Mrs. Jarrett Back, Does Not Plan Any Legal Action Against A.A.U.,” NYT, August 21, 1936; Richard Goldstein, “Eleanor Holm Whalen, 30’s Swimming Champion, Dies,” NYT, February 2, 2004; and Walters, Berlin Games (157).
I have drawn mostly from Day’s and White’s journals to recount the boys’ arrival in Europe, with additional information from Shorty Hunt’s letter home, cited above. Their reception in Hamburg and Berlin is chronicled in Arthur J. Daley, “Tens of Thousands Line Streets to Welcome U.S. Team to Berlin,” NYT, July 25, 1936, and “Olympic Squad Receives Warm Nazi Welcome,” Associated Press, July 24, 1936. Richard Wingate’s response to Brundage’s triumphant arrival in Berlin appears in “Olympic Games Comment,” NYT, July 24, 1936.
The crew’s impressions of Köpenick,
Grünau, and the German crew are derived from Roger Morris’s journal; George Pocock’s impressions recorded in Newell (104) and “Memories”; and Lewis Burton, “Husky Crew Gets Lengthy Workout,” Associated Press, July 27, 1936. The boys’ ramblings in Berlin and Köpenick are chronicled in all three journals—Day, White, and Morris—and Gordon Adam’s interview with Hodak, cited above. Peter Mallory discusses the Italian crew in his Sport of Rowing (Henley on Thames: River Rowing Museum, 2011), 735–38. Pocock’s tale of the outraged Australians at Henley is recounted in Newell (104).
My account of the opening ceremonies draws from Albion Ross, “Nazis Start Olympics as Gigantic Spectacle,” NYT, July 26, 1936; Shorty Hunt’s letter home published in the Puyallup Press, August 21, 1936; Riefenstahl in her memoir (191–92); Goebbels’s diary quoted in Trimborn, Leni Riefenstahl (141); Christopher Hudson, “Nazi Demons Laid to Rest in World Cup Stadium,” Daily Mail, July 6, 2006; the Day, White, and Morris journals; my 2011 interview with Mike and Marilynn Moch; Bob Moch’s account as given in Michael Socolow’s November 2004 interview with him; Frederick T. Birchall, “100,000 Hail Hitler; U. S. Athletes Avoid Nazi Salute to Him,” NYT, August 2, 1936; Royal Brougham, “120,000 Witness Olympic Opening,” PI, August 2, 1936; John Kiernan, “Sports of the Times,” NYT, August 2, 1936; “Olympic Games,” Time, August 10, 1936; Bethlehem Steel, “John White Rowed for the Gold . . . and Won It,” Bottom Line 6, no. 2 (1984); and Pocock’s “Memories.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Pocock quote is from Newell (79). The boys’ adventures in Berlin, Köpenick, and Grünau are drawn, again, primarily from the journals of the three who kept them. Throughout this time, press reports surfaced concerning the ongoing worries about Don Hume’s health. For more on Noel Duckworth, see Julia Smyth’s brief biographical sketch on the Churchill College Boat Club website, available at https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/societies/boatclub/history.html#duckworth. Also of interest is the transcript of a radio broadcast from Singapore to London, September 12, 1945, available at https://www.historyinfilm.com/kwai/padre.htm. An article about the 1936 Boat Race, featuring Ran Laurie and Duckworth, “Beer Scores Over Milk,” NYT, April 5, 1936, is the source of some of my information about Laurie. Laurie was so modest, it is said, that his son Hugh did not know that his father had won an Olympic gold medal (in 1948) until he happened across it in his father’s sock drawer many years later. The drenching of the police cadets and the near brawl with the Yugoslavians are documented in the journals and mentioned in Newell (105).
The British assessment that the American eight was “perfect” appears in “Chances of British Oarsmen,” Manchester Guardian, August 11, 1936. Hume’s weight and condition are discussed again in “Hume Big Worry,” Associated Press, August 12, 1936. My account of the qualifying race is based on the boys’ journals, as well as Royal Brougham, “U.S. Crew Wins Olympic Trial,” PI, August 13, 1936; Arthur J. Daley, “Grünau Rowing Course Mark Smashed by Washington in Beating British Crew,” NYT, August 1936 (no specific date on clipping); and “Leander’s Great Effort,” Manchester Guardian, August 13, 1936.
For more on the Nazi atrocities in Köpenick, see “Nazi Tortures Told in ‘Blood Week’ Trial,” Stars and Stripes, June 14, 1950, and Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin, 2005), 360. For more on the Sachsenhausen camp, see the entry in the Holocaust Encyclopedia at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website: https://www.ushmm.org, and the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation website: https://www.stiftung-bg.de/gums/en/index.htm. For a listing of firms complicit with the Nazis, see “German Firms That Used Slave or Forced Labor During the Nazi Era,” on the Jewish Virtual Library website, available at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/germancos.html. For a chilling firsthand account of what the forced labor camps were like, see “Record of Witness Testimony number 357,” Voices from Ravensbrück, Lund University Library website, available at https://www3.ub.lu.se/ravensbruck/interview357-1.html. My account of the ordeal of the Hirschhahn family is based primarily on a transcript of Eva Lauffer Deutschkron’s oral history in “Wisconsin Survivors of the Holocaust,” at the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org.
The new rules for lane selection are mentioned in The XIth Olympic Games: Official Report (1000). For a bit more on Germany’s lane assignments, see Albion Ross, “Germany Leads in Olympic Rowing as U.S. Fares Poorly in Consolation Round,” NYT, August 14, 1936. For the rest of their lives the boys and their coaches believed that Germany and Italy had been assigned the best lanes and they the worst—deliberately.
George Pocock describes his feelings upon hearing “God Save the King” in his “Memories.” Photographs taken before and after the gold medal race, as well as footage of the race itself, seem to confirm that the American boys were wearing mismatched outfits, not their official uniforms, during the race.
The psychological importance of having Don Hume in the boat can’t be overstated. All the boys brought it up when they talked about the race in later years. Al Ulbrickson is quoted as saying after the race, “When Don came back they simply decided nothing could stop them,” in Alan Gould’s “Huskies, It’s Revealed, All But Ready for Sick Beds Before Winning Race,” Associated Press, August 14, 1936.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Pocock epigraph is again from Newell (81). My account of what was happening inside the Husky Clipper during the gold medal race is based to a large extent on the journals, along with Joe’s own recollections. Other sources include Hodak’s 1988 interview with Gordon Adam; my interviews with Marilynn and Michael Moch; a voice recording of Moch’s account, available at https://huskycrew.com/bobmoch.mp3; Wayne Cody’s KIRO Radio interview with Adam, Hume, Hunt, and White, August 1, 1986; the video “U of W Crew—The Early Years,” cited above; and Pocock’s “Memories.” Bob Moch mentions counting down the remaining strokes in his November 2004 interview with Michael Socolow; Jim McMillin, in his November 2004 interview with Socolow, mentions shouting the F word.
Major sources for that day also include “Beresford’s Third Gold Medal,” Manchester Guardian, August 15, 1936; Arthur J. Daley, “Fifth Successive Eight-Oared Rowing Title Is Captured by U.S.,” NYT, August 15, 1936; Grantland Rice, “In the Sportlight,” Reading Eagle, January 21, 1937; J. F. Abramson, “Washington 8 Wins Title of World’s Greatest Crew,” HT, August 15, 1936; Tommy Lovett, “Went to Town as Bob Knocked” (an undated clipping in the John White materials, no source); Alan Gould, “U.W. Crew Noses Out Italians,” Associated Press, August 14, 1936; Al Ulbrickson’s already-cited “Now! Now! Now!” in Collier’s; and The XIth Olympic Games: Official Report. My descriptions of Hitler and his entourage are based on photographs and several contemporaneous newsreels shot that day.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Pocock quote is from his previously cited letter to the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, reprinted in Rowing News Bulletin. Royal Brougham’s firsthand account of the race was never published because of the news writers’ strike in Seattle; however, he hearkened back to it in “That Day Recalled,” PI, July 24, 1976. The comment about Moch’s shortness is from my interview with Marilynn Moch. The boys’ tears on the podium are documented in Gail Wood, “Olympians to Be Honored,” an undated clipping from the Olympian in Joe Rantz’s scrapbook. The all-night escapade in Berlin is documented in some detail in the three journals. Among other things, it involved many bottles of champagne, a visit to Berlin’s notorious Femina nightclub, and winding up on the wrong train and arriving far out in Potsdam as the sun rose the next morning.
EPILOGUE
The epigraph is once again Pocock, this time from a speech he gave to the University of Washington Varsity Boat Club in 1965. Audio is available on the Husky Crew website at https://www.huskycrew.org/audio-video/Pocock65mp3.mp3. McMillin mentions stopping to visit relatives in New York in his 2004 interview with Socolow. Johnny White’s journey home was explained to me in my interview with Mary Helen Tarbox. Shorty Hunt’s
arrival home is celebrated in “When Olympic Athletes Were Honored by Valley,” Puyallup Valley Tribune, September 29, 1936. Pocock’s side trip to England is discussed in “One-Man Navy Yard” (49) and Newell (111). Bobby Moch’s post-Olympics experiences were explained to me in my interviews with Marilynn Moch, with some details also from the Montesano Vidette, November 11, 1999.
The boys’ extraordinary accomplishment in the 1937 Poughkeepsie Regatta is best chronicled in “Washington Crews Again Sweep Hudson Regatta,” NYT, June 23, 1937. Royal Brougham describes the evening the boys parted ways in “Ulbrickson Plans Arrival on July 5,” PI, June 23, 1937.
Göring’s “All that is lacking” proclamation can be found in Shirer, Rise and Fall (300). The unidentified American’s comment is from a chilling piece of prewar propaganda, Stanley McClatchie, Look to Germany: The Heart of Europe (Berlin: Heinrich Hoffmann, 1936). For much more on the reception Riefenstahl’s Olympia received, see Bach, Leni (196–213).
Many details of the boys’ subsequent lives are drawn from a series of obituaries. See the online notes for individual citations. Ulbrickson’s clear recollection of the day he first put Joe in the 1936 varsity boat is recounted in George Varnell, “Memories of Crew: Al Recalls the Highlights of a Long, Honored Career,” ST (no date, a clipping in Joe Rantz’s scrapbook). Some details of Ebright’s later career are from Arthur M. Arlett’s 1968 interview with him. The ten-year anniversary rows are chronicled in a series of news articles and local television broadcasts through these years.
It is a small but noteworthy irony that among the first Allied troops who crossed the Elbe River and met up with Russian troops in April of 1945—encircling Berlin and sealing Hitler’s fate—was a small band of resourceful American boys, rowing a captured German racing shell.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics Page 33