It develops aggressiveness, teamwork, stamina, physical and mental coordination under active stress, and therefore it holds a foremost place in our national wartime training program.
[2]Beginning in the fall of 1942, the War Department began to promote organized football exhibitions involving select teams from its military bases that played full schedules against the depleted squads of regional universities.
[4] The Eastern Army All-Star team was led by Lt. Col. Robert R. Neyland, and played September 1942 games against the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Chicago Bears.
[4] The Western All-Stars, coached by Major Wallace Wade of Duke University, played a slate including games beginning late in August 1942 against the Washington Redskins, Chicago Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, and Giants.
Even with the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, however, the times still remained uncertain to an extent with the Allied occupation forces facing possible pacification campaigns in the defeated Axis countries, not to mention increasingly strained relations with the Soviet Union.
After encountering no significant resistance in the occupied countries over the subsequent year (save for a few, isolated efforts at sabotage by Edelweiss Pirates or Japanese holdouts), most American servicemen were then quickly discharged, and the service football teams essentially left with them.