Theodore Samuel Williams was a MLB player and manager for many years. He played his entire nineteen year career with the Boston Red Sox, and he is considered one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game. His career highlights include a lifetime .344 batting average, 521 home runs, and the highest on-base percentage, .482, of all-time. He was a two-time League MVP, six-time batting champion, a two-time Triple Crown winner, and was an all-star seventeen times. Williams was voted into the Hall of Fame his first year of eligibility in 1966.
In 1942 Williams was drafted into the military with a 1-A classification. He appealed that classification, stating that he was sole-support for his mother, and after several appeals was re-classified 3-A. The public reaction was not favorable, this being war time.
On May 22, 1942, Williams joined the Navy Reserve, and he went on active duty in 1943 as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps as a Naval Aviator. He attended pre-flight training in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Civilian Pilot Training. Shortly after the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Williams was sent to Pearl Harbor where he played baseball in the Army League. Some of his opponents in that Army League were Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, and Stan Musial.
After the war, Williams returned to the Boston Red Sox and continued his remarkable career as one of the greatest of all-time.
One of the things we notice as we look back at famous Americans during World War 2 is how the war completely disrupted the lives of so many, the poor and the rich, the average and the famous. Few people in the States were not drastically affected by World War 2, and that was without the war actually coming to this country. The affect on those who lived in Europe was unbelievable, and in many cases is still being felt today, seventy years after the last shot was fired.
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