33 – Strength

This week is about my uncle, Harry Kenyon, Jr., and boxing. Harry started his college career at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the fall of 1939 when he was 17. This is where he began boxing as a sport; his hope was to get into West Point. Harry's weekly letters home tell the story...

Harry the boxer, sometime in 1940-43

1939 Oct 19. Harry has started in college at Madison, Wisconsin, 75 miles southwest of Fond du Lac where he was born and went to high school. He is a bit young – he won't turn 18 until February 15 – and weighs about 145 pounds. We first hear about his interest and participation in boxing:

Tell father that I am out for boxing, persuaded Walsh (the coach) to give me equipment, and that I work out from 4:30 – 5:30 on Mon-Wed-Fri. They haven’t brot out the gloves yet; we just use the punching bags and heavy bags, skip rope, go thru body-conditioning exercises and practice on individual punches and stance. Saw Omar Crocker, National Intercollegiate champ, and probably the best college boxer in the U.S., yesterday. He happens to fight at my weight (145 lbs) and if I should enter the all-school tournament in December, I would be in his division. Pleasant thot.

1940 Feb 29. Harry enjoyed attending the school boxing matches which were a big draw as he wrote in a letter to his father:

You should see these boxing matches. They go over big. They’re lucky if they get 7-8000 at a basketball game, but any crowd under 12-13000 for a boxing match is a disappointment. College boxing is more amateur. 3 two-minute rounds to a match. So there are no slow rounds, the boys are in there slugging most of the time. And knockouts are fairly frequent. Really fine fun, and nobody hurt.

1940 Mar 28. Boxing has ended its season:

Boxing closed for the year yesterday. The team has one match here Friday, then the Nat’l Championships in California. When they come back a boxing banquet is going to be held, April 11. My name was put down on the squad list, so I get a free meal.

Shortly after that letter Harry was accepted into West Point, starting with their summer program for new plebes.

1940 Sep 8. When classes have started in the fall Harry breaks down his schedule, which includes getting some boxing in gym, though he is taking lacrosse as his intramural sport:

This wk. as you can imagine, things started. Not only classes, but full dress parades. Our schedule for as long as we can have parades will be like so. Reveille at 6:00. It’s dark, we should go back to Standard Time before it’s dark an hr. later too. Breakfast 6:30-7:00. Math class – Mon. thru Sat. – 8:00-9:20. Gym on same days 9:30-10:30. We alternate 3 ways in gym, 1st day gymnastics, 2nd wrestling & fencing, 3rd boxing & fencing. 12:00-12:30 lunch. 2:00 Mon. thru Fri – French & English on alternate days for 1 hr. On Wed. after 3:00, and Sat. after Review which comes from about 1:00-2:00 we are free. Of the remaining 4 days, on 2 we have 1 hr of drill followed by parade, on the other intermural athletics. My intermurder is La Crosse. Here La Crosse is a major sport, and most everybody has to start from scratch. It’s a game like hockey, only slightly more gory, as the ball is carried in the stick and not shoved along the ground. So while half the Corps parades, the other takes intermurder. The Review on Sat. is a regimental, of course.

1940 Oct 20. In his letters of October we find that he is now boxing on the C squad:

Tell mother & grandmother not to worry about sending me anything to eat. C squad boxing starts this week, and I’m way overweight. I weighed 148 when I arrived, and I’m almost up to 155 now. I’d like to try to make 145 if it’s possible. And eating between meals is the surest way to ruin training I know.

1940 Oct 27. Continuing: 

The Corps squad lists came out this week. Three plebes went out for C squad boxing, we’re all on the squad. Report at the end of intermurder, about the second week in Nov. 

Fall tests in gymnastics have begun. We go to gym six days per week you know. 3 days to gymnastic work, 3 days to 2 out of 3 of boxing, wrestling, and fencing, alternated. The last three I might have taken up in the course of events, but gymnastics would be the furthest from my thots. So it probably does me the most good. I always figure they can’t develop muscles I haven’t got tho. Anything times zero is still zero, as algebra proves. But practice does seem to do it. We worked out for a month, almost two, on high bar, stall bars, parallel bars, vault bars, ropes, & tumbling. And now for test we have things I know I couldn’t do when we started. Because I tried. By the time spring rolls around we’re all expected to be little pseudo Flash Gordons. 

1940 Nov 24. We learn Harry is hurting a bit:

We’ll make this the monthly request issue, since all of your questions are answered. You know the two bandages I used for boxing? About 1 ½” wide, all rolled up, tied, and left I don’t know where. Could you ship those along please. They haven’t issued any accessories yet but expect us to work out as tho we were all set. Look the bandages over before you send them, will you please? As to material, length, width, etc. In case I need more.

Also would you empty my first aid kit & ship it sometime in the near future containing the following: 1 bottle iodine, 1 roll adhesive tape, a few band-aids, and 6-12 Dr. Scholls Zinc-Pads (the kind like the samples in little yellow envelopes given away at the shoe stores).

1940 Dec 1. A follow-up:

Boxing here lacks protective equipment we had at the U. Blood & teeth all over. Don’t want to sprain my thumbs. First Aid kit is what I need, not for boxing, don’t worry but just little things. 

1941, Jan 19. Mid-winter blues...

These are indeed dull days. Just don’t feel like doing anything. Classes, boxing, study, bed, day after day. 

1941 Jan 24. We get some detail on Harry's boxing workouts:

Day by day, I have the most fun at the gym in the afternoons. On Mon & Friday from 4:30 – 6:00, Tues, Wed, Thur, 3:30 – 6:00. We work out in the boxing room for about an hour. Usually like this: 3 rounds on the heavy bags, 10-15 min drill on attack & defense, 3 rounds of boxing, 3 shadow boxing, when a particularly nasty exercise known as “push-and-pull,” which is about what it sounds like, for 2 more rounds. Then we go upstairs & do 15 laps on the track (12 laps = 1 mile) alternately running, sprinting, walking, a lap. Then, on the 3:30 days I’ve spent till 5:30 working on the test exercises for gym. Then downstairs for a shower. Usually I follow the shower with 5-10 minutes in the pool, and about the same time under the sun-lamp. Scientifically speaking, I lose about 2 pounds an hour at this rate. Weighed in at 153 Monday, weighed out at 144 ½ today. Monday I’ll probably start in again at about 49-50. 

1941 Feb 15. A letter to his brother Lawrence.

Boxing, Fencing, and Wrestling, plus Gym, are regular classes for plebes. Hour per day every day the first semester, every other day the second. We took up the four things I mentioned all thru Jan., are taking our final tests now, and will go on to other things as Life Saving & Track until June. Boxing was run by the regular coach, Billy Cavanaugh, a scarred old ex-pro middleweight who was a flash in his day. He still referees in N.Y. besides holding down a regular job here. He refereed all of Armstrong’s bouts, most of the big middle & light & welter weight in N.Y. We spent half the semester sparring and drilling with the left hand only, qualified in that, then took up using both. Qualification grades in boxing rise as the amount of blood spilled. If you get knocked out, you get a 2.8. Come out unmarked, and you only go pro if your opponent looks like hell, I got 3.0 & a 2.7 by the latter method. I could always guarantee myself a 2.7 by sticking my nose out. The right side has a weak blood-vessel that should perhaps be burnt out. A left hook squarely caught invariably starts it dribbling. Makes me keep that guard up.

1941 Mar 10. We learn that boxing has ended for the season, and Harry is looking to tennis:

Boxing ended Tuesday . So I was all set to spend a few afternoons, two or three weeks of them at least, sleeping from 3 to 6. Wednesday I slept from 3 to 6. Thursday tennis started. Indoors, in the gym. There must be 40 men out for “C” squad, which can’t carry more than 10 or 12. In contrast to boxing, where there never were enough men in the heavy and light weights. About 5 men in both the 145 & 155 lbs. classes.  

1941 Jun 3. A first year summary...

... in general I did better in academics than in other phases of my first year. In athletics I made two Corps squads, boxing and tennis. But I got my numerals in neither. 

1941 Dec 6. During his second year we don't hear much about boxing, as his letters focused more on academics and other activities.

Yes, boxing just started. I weighed out at 146 Friday. Very good exercise. The section roll I sent home was German Section 1B. Swank, no 2, ranked no. 1 in French all last year, has an average just equal to mine now. We’ve never been separated by more than three tenths thru the whole semester.

1942 Jan 18. By January Harry feels he is struggling academically:

I mean by “not having settled down” that my grades stink. I quit boxing this last week, at least for a while so that I could study afternoons. I have to, to get good grades in Phil and Calculus. If I can’t study – and it’s hard, I’ve never studied between 3:00 and 6:00 before – I’ll go back to boxing. I was just on the point of being transferred from “B” squad to “A” squad I think, tho I’m not sure. But I just don’t feel as tho I’m accomplishing anything if my grades aren’t good. Another new, and totally different situation.  

1943 Feb 16. Harry did continue his boxing career there at West Point, though not as a starter. Academically he did great, graduating in the top 20 of his class. In his final year we get an update in this letter to his family:

I’m having my usual fun in boxing. I’m in the 155 pound class this year – haven’t gotten down below 153 since summer. Army has at least two good men in this class this year, so I’m only needed as a reserve. In that way I can work more on learning to box, and spend less time fighting, which is the approved way of winning college bouts. Today we had intersquad bouts as usual. I took on the regular in my weight. And like a happy-go-lucky college 4-F I’d just gotten out of bed, where I’d been doing nothing more strenuous than lifting chocolate cupcakes up to my mouth. In the first round my opponent sank a right hand up to the wrist in my stomach. He nearly got all those cupcakes in turn. But the training I’ve received in boxing during the last three years has been some of the best experience I’ve gotten at the Academy. 

The 1943 yearbook shows the boxing team: Harry is seated second from left in the front row:

1943 West Point boxing team yearbook picture

Harry went on to become a paratrooper officer in the Army's 17th Airborne division. He was the only officer of his company to survive the Battle of the Bulge, was promoted to captain, and led his company in Operation Varsity, the jump over the Rhine into Germany. Although it could not make him invincible, boxing helped give him the physical and mental strength and discipline needed for his role in WWII.

Harry during WWII, somewhere in Europe