★ 2022-06-17
A uniquely focused World War II history interweaving military heroics and college football.
Many books describe the consequential Battle of Okinawa in 1945, but this one deserves serious attention. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, makes good use of his sports expertise to deliver a vivid portrait of college football before and during WWII, when it was a national obsession far more popular then professional leagues. He recounts the lives and families of a group of outstanding players who made their marks before joining the Marines to endure brutal training followed by a series of island battles culminating in Okinawa, which many did not survive. The author, whose father served at Okinawa, offers illuminating diversions into Marine history, the birth of amphibious tactics between the wars (they did not exist before), the course of the Pacific war, and the often unedifying politics that guided its course. To readers expecting another paean to the Greatest Generation, Bissinger delivers several painful jolts. Often racist but ordered to accept Black recruits, Marine leaders made sure they were segregated and treated poorly. Though many of the athletes yearned to serve, some took advantage of a notorious draft-dodging institution: West Point. Eagerly welcomed by its coaching staff, which fielded the best Army teams in its history, they played throughout the war and then deliberately flunked out (thus avoiding compulsory service) in order to join the NFL. In December 1944 on Guadalcanal (conquered two years earlier), two bored Marine regiments suffered and trained for the upcoming invasion. Between them, they contained 64 former football players. Inevitably, they chose sides and played a bruising, long-remembered game, dubbed the Mosquito Bowl. In the final third of the book, Bissinger provides a capable account of the battle, a brutal slog led by an inexperienced general who vastly underestimated his job. The author emphasizes the experience and tenacity of his subjects, most of whom were among the 15 killed.
College football and World War II: not an obvious combination, but Bissinger handles it brilliantly.
Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and profound. This book too is destined to become a classic. I devoured it.” — John Grisham
“Take your pick: This is either the story of the most improbable game of football ever played, an anthem to immigrant America, or a brilliant tribute to an exemplary brotherhood that would be decimated at Okinawa. In every case it’s an indelible account of promising young men themselves hurled into history. Buzz Bissinger has stitched their story together as no one else could, powerfully and seamlessly, offering up a tender-tough tale in his signature high-octane prose.” — Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Witches: Salem, 1692
“Here may be the most uniquely fascinating story ever written about World War II. Like the best of Buzz Bissinger, it is about far more than a football game, or even the war. He’s a gifted narrator and prodigious researcher, and in this book his skills are all on display: indelible characters, a bizarre and remarkably distinct setting, action, drama. . . . A great story told with insight and humor and deep feeling. Do not pass this book by. It is magnificent.” — Mark Bowden, New York Times bestselling author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968
"Harrowing, profound, and illuminating, The Mosquito Bowl humanizes war and elevates athletic competition in one fell swoop. Bissinger is the master of showing us life in a single grain of sand, and he has done so brilliantly here. As familiar as the subject of World War II may seem, this book makes you see it in a fresh and exquisite way, with all its pain and triumph rendered in close detail." — Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of On Animals and The Library Book
“Stephen Crane famously discovered ‘the rage of conflict’ while watching a college football game. For Buzz Bissinger, football is no metaphor; it is the way into one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Deeply researched, told with extraordinary empathy and verve, The Mosquito Bowl will break your heart.” — Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award winning author of In the Heart of the Sea and Travels with George
“The Mosquito Bowl is savage, piercing and haunting. Buzz Bissinger has written an utterly heartbreaking saga that fuses the macho glory of college football with the brutality and futility of combat. It is a measure of Bissinger’s singular talent that his searing account is tragic, yet also inspiring and unforgettable.” — David Zucchino, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Wilmington’s Lie
"[Bissinger] succeeds brilliantly, interweaving rich back stories of a few superior college football players whose sports careers and lives were upended and often ended by war . . . . it changed the way I thought about World War II." — New York Times Book Review
“[This] remarkable work profoundly communicates the experience and importance of the United States Marine Corps while preserving a rich history that our Corps and Nation should never forget.” — From the Citation for the General Wallace M. Greene Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation
"The Mosquito Bowl adroitly resurrects a long-forgotten episode to explore American values across the generations." — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Bissinger effortlessly combines sports and military history in this gritty account of a football game played by U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal in December 1944 . . . . The book excels in its sweeping yet fine-grained portraits of how these Marines got to Guadalcanal and in the harrowing descriptions of Pacific Theater combat, including the bloody fight for Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa. This is a penetrating tale of courage and sacrifice." — Publishers Weekly
"College football and World War II: not an obvious combination, but Bissinger handles it brilliantly." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Fans of Bissinger’s previous books will find a rich character-driven narrative about two of the dirtiest and deadliest battlefields of World War II . . . . Bissinger has found a way to merge sports with World War II to give readers a heartbreaking narrative of what many young men went through in the last days of World War II. Highly recommended." — Library Journal (starred review)
"This well-researched and impassioned book not only chronicles a little-known moment in sports history but also offers a poignant snapshot of the tragedy of war." — Booklist
"The Mosquito Bowl is not just a book about war. It is, instead, about the men who fought that war. The author brings us rich details about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, and their aspirations, many of which were either delayed, derailed, or destroyed on Okinawa." — New York Journal of Books
"In exploring the hearts and souls of those who risked everything for their country, Bissinger’s book defines some of the qualities that make America great—then, now and forever. And such greatness characterizes exceptional men and women around the world. He also showcases the horrors of war and the blunders that cost lives on the battlefield." — Associated Press
"While The Mosquito Bowl is seemingly about an ersatz football game, there is far more here than what occurred on a dirt and coral field on an island in the Pacific in 1944." — Bookreporter
