07-20-22 04:11 PM - Post#920578    

After the earlier post on Heavy Hands I was poking around the "Art of Manliness" website again and noticed they re-upped an earlier article on the WWII physical fitness standards and test scores:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitnes s/are-you-as-fit-as-a-wor ld-war-ii-gi/

https://www.artofmanliness.com/wwii-fitness-test-sco resheet/

I'm admittedly a sucker for these sorts of things (as evidenced by my earlier post on the 5bx). The test is pull-ups, squat jumps, push-ups, sit-ups, and a few different options for agility. It covers a lot of bases and is fairly well rounded in terms of the basic movements. The "perfect" score is pretty intense - I think if you were even able to get to the bottom of the "fair" category - 9 pull-ups, 39 squat jumps, 31 push-ups, 51 sit-ups (in 2 minutes) you'd be well ahead of the game.

Re: Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-20-22 05:24 PM - Post#920579    

My Dad did 4 years in the Navy prior to WWII and was then drafted into the Army during the war. He was 17 when he joined the Navy and 23 when he was drafted. The only thing he said there were a lot of young guys in his Army basic training platoon and he would end up outside when they were crying at night. But, he said you could tell that guys were still suffering from the ravages of malnutrition caused by the Depression.

However, guys also thrived from three square meals and a lot of daily exercise.

Mark it Zero.

07-20-22 05:37 PM - Post#920580    

I went to Navy boot camp in 1967 - saw lots of huge transformations from regular sleep patterns - 3 square meals a day and regular exercise. Fat guys lost - skinny guys gained - I changed hardly at all - I went in thin but in great shape - I had a job trimming trees and cutting right of way before I went in - it was a lot harder than boot camp.

07-20-22 05:40 PM - Post#920581    

Well, the youngest WWII GI would be about 95 so I think I got a chance at being that fit.

07-20-22 09:43 PM - Post#920582    

I had the indescribable honor of meeting Lt Col (Ret) Dick Cole ~12 years ago. He was Jimmy Doolittle’s copilot on the Tokyo raid. He was 96 at the time. His grip was IRON, his jaw square, and his eyes clear and blue. I sh*t you not, that 96 year old man could have saddled up that B-25 and reflown that raid that day. One of the most impressive physical things I have ever seen. That man must have been a BEAST back in his day…

Just my 2¢

07-21-22 05:22 AM - Post#920584    

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/07/if-you-were-t he-average-g-i-in-world-w ar-ii/

You are a 26-years-old white male with nine years of education, who comes from New York and is named John. You were drafted into the army and are now a rifleman in the infantry with a rank of private.

Back home, you have a wife and at least one child hoping for your return.

You are five feet, eight inches tall, and you weigh 144 pounds. During your basic training, which you received at Fort Benning, GA, you gained 5 to 20 pounds and added an inch to your 33 ¼” chest.

07-21-22 06:29 AM - Post#920586    

Thank you for starting this thread. Very humbling.

Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-21-22 08:33 AM - Post#920592    

Mentally and physically, absolutely not.

The resilience on these guys is OFF THE CHARTS.

They're the greatest generation. Imagine being born in 1920-24. You have the great depression at 9 years old, growing up in poverty, sometimes not knowing where you next meal is.

Things start to get better around 1939.

You meet a nice girl, get married and have a child or 2 or wife is carrying. My grandfather didn't meet my mother until she was 3.

2 years later, You get drafted into a war to either save Europe or because your Naval Base on one of the territories gets bombed or enlist to save your country.

Take your pick, Europe in the winter time, see Battle of the Bulge freezing to death or Pacific Islands rife with malaria, dysentery and Japanese willing to engage in absolute slaughter.

These guys were supermen. We're mere mortals and doing pullups isn't going to change that.




Edited by BChase on 07-21-22 08:33 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

07-21-22 08:50 AM - Post#920593    

• WxHerk Said:

Pilots, man. One of my best friends is an Air Force guy, coming up on retirement, who's never once scored less than "perfect" on a PFT. They regularly send the hot young athletes to train with him and be humbled. He's also brilliant and has superhero vision, like 20/10 or something. When it comes to sorting the mutants from the rest of us, the military knows what it's doing.

• BChase Said:

This, I think, is what made them so great. Everyone struggled for the first decade of their life. As Dan often mentions, fitness means being fit for a task, and these guys, and the troubles they dealt with, made them fit for walking into hell and coming back.

Conversely, I, who grew up with a TV, A/C, and microwave, am barely fit to walk into a gym and make it out without complaining incessantly about some niggling injury.

Re: Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-21-22 09:25 AM - Post#920596    

• BChase Said:

Sounds a lot like my dad's dad - drafted in '41, sent to Europe, didn't meet my aunt/his daughter until she was three. He died when I was fairly young but my dad told me he met guys who had never owned a pair of shoes until basic training. He worked with the WPA/CCC so was better off than most before the Army. Then there was my mom's dad who was in the pacific. Apparently his eye sight was bad enough that he wouldn't have qualified for the Marine Corps but the line for the exam wrapped around giving him a chance to memorize the eye chart. Definitely a different breed.

07-21-22 09:45 AM - Post#920597    

These were the people I grew up with in my youth. My Dad commented on the food thing (three meals a day) all the time. I've mentioned before that he was abandoned and raised by his aunts all over Canada...

Oddly, I have to pause and stop writing. Maybe later...this touched me more than I thought.

Daniel John Just handing down what I was handed down... Make a Difference. Live. Love. Laugh. Balance work, rest, play and pray (enjoy beauty and solitude) Sleep soundly. Drink Water. Eat veggies and protein. Walk. Wear your seat belt. Don’t smoke. Floss your teeth. Put weights overhead. Pick weights off the floor. Carry weights. Reread great books. Say thank you

07-21-22 11:35 AM - Post#920598    

My father enlisted in the army in World War II despite two deferments. He was a student at Penn State, where he was on the varsity basketball team. He could have earned another deferment working in the scrap metal business with his father who was incredulous when he learned about it and said, “You’re crazy! You could get killed!”
I never asked him about physical training for the army. He was sent to England and then landed in France on D-Day plus ten in 1944. He told me that a plane strafed the beach, and he and another soldier ducked under a jeep and were saved. He served in Patton’s army and was in action in the five major battles of Europe. When I was a kid, I saw his medals, which he kept in a file cabinet and rarely talked about the war.
A few years before he died, I learned some things about his time in the army. There were three professional athletes in his outfit. An outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles, a boxer, whose names I never learned, and Tommy Thompson the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Thompson_( quarterback)
Once, he was playing catch with Thompson who threw him a bullet pass from very close. “It almost knocked me over, but I held on to it,” he said. The boxer cracked up and was sent home early. My father didn’t disparage him in any way. Another guy in his outfit from the Deep South said, “We don’t let Jews in our town, but you can come,” he told me matter of factly.
He was one of the liberators of the Buchenwald concentration camp. He had photos of skeletons stacked up in wagons, which he donated to the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem. https://www.yadvashem.org/museum/holocaust-hist ory-museum.html.
At the end of the war, he almost died and spent a year in a hospital. He suffered a lot of back problems from his time in the army but was very athletic and played tennis into his mid-eighties, when he received radiation therapy for cancer, which ruined his bones and ended his tennis playing.
Not long before he died, he said almost in amazement, “I killed a Nazi and took the gun out of his hand while it was still warm.” I asked him what he would tell his twenty year old self who enlisted. “You’re crazy. You could get killed!” was his instant reply. “If you could do it again, what would you do?” “The same thing, I’d enlist in the army.”

07-21-22 12:35 PM - Post#920599    

• Dan John Said:

Maybe this would merit a whole chapter in a new book somewhere along the line.

"I think we often spend too much time focusing on max fitness and not nearly enough on maintaining our minimums. It seems we need to think sustainable rather than obtainable. Meaning whatever we do today, we can do it again tomorrow. Never taking so much from ourselves that we can't." Dan Martin

Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-21-22 05:06 PM - Post#920608    

• Dan John Said:

Me, too. My dad and half dozen uncles served. None of them talked about the war much. Dad was a B-17 bombardier/navigator and Purple Heart recipient.

Be strong. Be in shape. Be a man among men, regardless of your age or circumstances.

Edited by AAnnunz on 07-21-22 05:16 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

Re: Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-21-22 05:36 PM - Post#920610    

A man* my Dad grew up with joined the Marines the same time my Dad joined the Navy, while they were still in high school. (Class of 37)

Ultimately he was captured in the Philippines. He survived the Bataan Death March.

There were four adventurers in my Dad's group. My Dad joined the Navy. Earl joined the Marines. His buddy Wayne joined the National Guard and saw heavy duty action. But, his friend Les took the cake. He got hired with a construction company. He ended up captured on Wake Island.

Mark it Zero.

Re: Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-23-22 11:51 PM - Post#920647    

Mort Wolk. A good friend's father. Small in stature. Owned a dry cleaner shop. Quiet and older than most of the dads. I never knew that he was a paratrooper dropped behind enemy lines on D-day.
No one knew until a L.A. newspaper did a story about him and a few other D-day vets. The newspaper was interviewing these brave men to get their opinion of Saving Private Ryan. I was floored! I'm fortunate to have been in the presence of this incredible man.

Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters.

Re: Are You As Fit As a World War II GI?
07-24-22 07:50 AM - Post#920649    

• Spark Said:

Think we all had people like that in our life and we just didn't know it. Out of curiosity I looked up an old childhood neighbor last year to see if he was still around and found an obituary from about 5 years ago. Almost the same type of man you described, but was the produce manager for an upscale grocery store for 40 years. He had a Bronze & Silver Star from fighting over in Europe.