“Happy and Cheerful in This Fine Camp”: Sports, Recreation, and the United States Army at Fort Ord and Camp Roberts, 1940 to 1945

In the introduction to their recent book Sport and the Military: The British Armed Forces, 1880-1960 (2010) Tony Mason and Eliza Riedi state that sport has been “poorly served in histories of the British armed forces.” This is followed by the assertion: “The study of the roles played by sport in the United States military is somewhat more developed” (pp. 1-3). Given the extensive growth that has occurred since the 1970s/1980s in studying “the history of sport” this lack of attention in both countries seems rather surprising. Although histories of sports and physical fitness programs conducted by the United States Navy during World War II have received at least a modicum of attention, those involving the United States Army barely exist.