Berlin Games (23 page)

A
T
10.30
ON
the morning of Wednesday, 15 July, the 384-strong American team boarded the SS
Manhattan
in New York harbour. Smartly dressed in straw boaters, white trousers and skirts, and blue blazers emblazoned with the Olympic shield, the team waved back at the thousands of well-wishers assembled on Pier 60, who were chanting, ‘“Ray!” Ray for the USA! A-M-E-R-I-C-A! “Ray!”' Aeroplanes and airships circled over their heads, while in the water a whole flotilla of tugs waited to escort the ship out of the harbour. It was a truly patriotic occasion, right down to the
Manhattan
's two funnels, which United States Lines had painted red, white and blue. At twelve o'clock, the ship set sail, accompanied by the whooping tugs. The athletes, many of whom had never sailed on a boat, or even left the United States, stayed on deck as long as possible to watch as Manhattan island retreated. The temperature was fearsomely hot, although a welcome stiff breeze started to cool them down.

The athletes were billeted in two and threes in third class, and many of them found their accommodation cramped but adequate. Jesse Owens was installed in Cabin 87 on Deck D. Although it was small, it was a respite from the newsmen who had crowded on board before the boat set sail, all of whom had frantically jockeyed to gain a few words with America's–and perhaps the world's–most celebrated athlete. Charles Leonard, who was competing in the pentathlon, found his berth very small, but at least it had a porthole. The female sprinter Helen Stephens also had a porthole, but she found something else in her cabin which unsettled her. Before the ship had even pulled out of the harbour, Stephens discovered some boxes containing literature and letters. They were ‘about the Jewish people wanting us to take a stand against competing against the Germans in the Olympics',
she recalled. ‘They were wanting us to stage a protest of some type. I turned this material over to my coach, and I think she turned this over to the Olympic officials.' One of the letters Stephens received suggested that she should make her protest by remaining on the starting line when the gun went off for the 100 metres final. The boycott movement, it seemed, was not quite dead.

Rather than concerning themselves with such matters, the athletes were more worried about whether they were going to get seasick. ‘Almost everyone was […] hoping to gain sea legs rapidly, and
stay well
,' Charles Leonard wrote in his diary. What was also important was the issue of food, and the athletes found within an hour of departure that they were being saddled with a special ‘training menu'. The lunch menu that day consisted of roast beef, baked potatoes, stewed knob celery, tomato salad and baked apple. Dinner that night featured chicken soup, roast chicken with gravy and cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, fresh peas, ice cream and candy. Apparently, this wasn't good enough for the athletes, and within twenty-four hours they were able to enjoy the regular ship's fare, which, according to Leonard, provided ‘a good bit more variety and essential quality and is greatly appreciated'. The ship's fare obviously went down well, as many of the athletes put on weight during the ten-day voyage. ‘The selection on board was beyond words,' wrote 5,000 metre runner Lou Zamperini, ‘plus it was free. At mealtime each table was laden with not just a basket of sweet rolls, but with
six
kinds of sweet rolls.' By the end of the voyage, Zamperini estimated that he had gained ten pounds. He had probably also eaten a sizeable proportion of the 1600 pounds of peanut brittle on board. Clearly, he had not read Brundage's recollections of sailing on the
Finland
over to the 1912 Stockholm Games. ‘Exposure to the unlimited menus on shipboard was fatal to some,' he wrote, ‘and several hopes of Olympic victory foundered at the bounteous dinner table.'

Glenn Morris also put on weight–some 8 pounds. To make matters worse, the cold, wet conditions of the mid-Atlantic gave him a chill. ‘I caught a cold which settled in my muscles,' he recalled, ‘and I was too tensed up to work out for two days.' Even if an athlete had not succumbed to a cold or seasickness, it was hard enough trying to stay in shape on board. Although the runners could run up and down
the deck, even as it pitched and rolled in high seas, for the swimmers and divers, practising their technique was somewhat tricky. Although there was a small pool–‘watered directly from the icebergs', wrote Leonard–the boat was not stabilised, so it was impossible for divers such as Velma Dunn to train effectively. Even swimming was a problem. ‘They tied a rope around our waist so we swam in place,' Dunn recalled. ‘Because the boat was pitching, you'd get two feet of water at one end, with eight feet at the other, and then at the next moment it sloshed the other way. It made for interesting training.' Charles Leonard found training sessions in the pool just short of torture. ‘We swim against belts anchored to the side of the pool and very nearly drown in a congealed condition at least twice a day,' he wrote. ‘That's [coach] Dick Mayo's minimum requirement.' Mayo would stand at the side of the pool, well wrapped up in thick woollens, while Leonard and his fellow pentathletes would sink to the bottom of the icy water, his shouts of encouragement often ignored.

For the other passengers, the athletes added a novelty to the cruise, although their presence could often be an obstacle. George F. Kennan was a diplomat at the United States embassy in Moscow who was travelling back to Europe with his family after the birth of his second child. ‘For a week we dodged the motions of gum-chewing supermen with crew cuts,' he wrote, ‘and a variety of hefty amazons, as they practiced their particular skills on deck.' The athletes had the run of the ship during daylight, but the first- and second-class passengers did not seem to mind too much to find that their deckchairs had been pushed out of the way to make space. Charles Leonard and his pentathletes even managed to get some target practice in, shooting across the forward deck and out to sea. ‘Makes some of the passengers nervous,' Leonard noted in his diary. ‘First class didn't bargain for this when they agreed to passage with the Olympic team. However, we have CAPTAIN'S approval–at sea his word is law.' With the wind and the pitching of the ship, their scores were not great. At least Leonard could get some sort of practice. For those involved in sports that involved throwing objects, training was impossible. ‘One soon reduces to zero the number of javelins, shot, hammers and discus if one throws them out to sea,' Leonard commented wryly in his diary.

As well as working out, there was much time left over for the team members to get to know each other. They were a snapshot of American society, coming from all backgrounds and races. One feature that was remarkable about the mini-society that developed on the boat was the lack of racial segregation. Back on the mainland, it was unthinkable in many states that blacks and whites should share a table, but on board the
Manhattan
things were different. ‘Everything seems to be harmonious so far,' wrote Leonard in his diary on 16 July. ‘The Negroes of the team eat, live and associate with all others–no distinctions are made. It's the only way the team can function–most people realise that.' In fact, the only distinction that anyone could note was that the African-Americans were more susceptible to seasickness, Jesse Owens being no exception. Owens was, however, involved in a minor racial incident, although ironically it was he who was responsible for it. On the first night, Owens found that he had been sat next to three white Southerners–the hurdlers Glenn Hardin and Forest ‘Spec' Towns, and the shot putter Jack Torrance. Unable to cope with sitting next to what he assumed to be a bunch of rednecks, he moved tables, and was light-heartedly ribbed for the rest of the voyage by Towns for his prejudice against white Southerners. Nevertheless, Owens charmed everybody on board, with many of the other athletes asking for his autograph. He was even voted the second-most popular shipmate, behind Glenn Cunningham, the long-distance runner from Kansas. He was more successful in the ‘best dressed' category, in which he came first, largely for the nattiness of his immaculately tailored blue pinstripe suit. What his fellow athletes didn't realise was that it was Owens' only suit.

It appears that Owens' charm worked on at least one woman on board. On the night of Wednesday 23rd, Helen Stephens turned in early, at around nine o'clock. Finding she couldn't sleep, she got up and went for a walk on what she thought to be an empty deck. After a while, she became aware that she was not on her own, a sense reinforced by giggled whispers and ‘muffled sounds' coming from a lifeboat. Edging closer, she noticed that the canvas covering the lifeboat was moving in a suggestively rhythmic way. She stepped back into the shadows and waited. After several minutes, a man got out of the lifeboat, a man Stephens instantly recognised as Jesse Owens.
Helen waited for him to disappear, and just as she started to leave the other occupant of the lifeboat emerged and walked past her, even whispering ‘Good morning' to her. As Stephens could not identify the woman, it has to be assumed that Owens' lifeboat paramour was not a member of the team.

For the majority of the athletes, the evenings were spent indulging in far more innocent pastimes. One night, the pentathletes organised a casino night, complete with paper money. ‘One of the track Negroes broke our bank eventually,' Leonard recalled, ‘but didn't come close with his paltry 39,000 against the 102,000 of one of his contemporaries.' The athletes had to retire to bed because their coaches were grumbling about the lateness of the hour, a grumble that was repeated on many an occasion. On another night, the athletes held a contest as to which of them was the most handsome man and which the most beautiful woman. The man was Glenn Hardin, but as he didn't pick up his prize it was instead awarded to the second-placed Glenn Morris. ‘Glenn was perhaps the most handsome man on the team,' said Marty Glickman. ‘He had a lean, smooth-muscled body, and hawk-like features, almost like an Indian.' What Morris seemed to lack was Jesse Owens' charm. ‘He was rather quiet, even aloof,' Glickman recalled. ‘He wasn't one of the boys […] The word “respect” comes to mind, rather than “well-liked”.' The most beautiful woman was judged to be Joanna de Tuscan, a fencer from Detroit. This result annoyed Eleanor Holm, who had been used to being fêted as a great beauty. According to Adolph Kiefer, she didn't even make the top three places. ‘I remember her storming off, shouting, “You're all jealous of me!” She wasn't one of us–she wasn't the Olympic ideal.'

Kiefer was right–Holm was not like the other athletes. Years spent in Hollywood and on the cabaret circuit had given her a sophistication utterly lacking in the rest of her teammates. While the athletes socialised among themselves, indulging in sophomoric activities such as fake weddings, Holm could be found drinking champagne with the first-class passengers, who included William Randolph Hearst Jr, the playwright Charlie MacArthur and his wife the actress Helen Hayes, and several journalists. As well as having a healthy appetite for champagne, Holm also had a taste for some of the men on board. ‘She spent
her time chasing boys,' Kiefer recalled. ‘I remember a fight on the deck between Holm and Dick Degener's wife. They were scratching and biting each other. “You stay away from my husband!” Mrs Degener was shouting.' It would seem that Degener–a bronze medal winner in springboard diving at the 1932 Games–was not the only target of her affections. According to Lou Zamperini, there was speculation that Holm and Hearst were an item, ‘but whatever her association was, I don't know', he recalled.

Holm soon earned herself a reputation as a hard partier. At 6 a.m. on the morning of Saturday 18th, her inebriated form was seen being carried to bed. She had sufficiently recovered by Sunday to spend another night on the razzle in first class, despite the protestations of the swimming team's chaperone, Mrs Ada T. Sackett, who told her to go to bed. Holm refused. ‘Look,' she replied, ‘it's my third Olympic team. I don't think you've been on any before. I know what I'm doing. And what are you doing up here? Why aren't you downstairs watching the athletes?' A shocked Mrs Sackett reported the incident to Avery Brundage, who reprimanded Holm the following day, reminding her of the contents of the AOC handbook, which stated: ‘It is understood of course that all members of the American Olympic Team refrain from smoking and the use of intoxicating drinks and other forms of dissipation while in training.' Brundage told Holm that if she continued in this way, then he would throw her off the team. Holm regarded this as an empty threat. She was a dead cert to win gold–there was no way she was going to be expelled. Besides, as Velma Dunn said, ‘She could beat anybody else on the planet, even if she were plastered.'

On the night of Wednesday, 22 July, Holm called Brundage's bluff by getting horrendously plastered up on A deck. ‘Holm was daring Brundage,' recalled Iris Cummings, ‘and she was going to stand up to him, no matter what.' According to Holm, the journalists threw a ‘humdinger of a party–everybody got pleasantly soused'. At some point in the small hours, Holm was discovered by Mrs Sackett in the arms of a young man. Early the next morning, a slumbering Holm was woken up by Sackett and the ship's doctor, J. Hubert Lawson, who diagnosed Holm as having ‘acute alcoholism'. This was clearly nonsense–Holm was merely hung over. Nevertheless, her condition did not stop Dee Boeckmann, the coach of the women's team, parad
ing all the female athletes into Holm's cabin to show them a barely living embodiment of the perils of demon drink. Worse was to come. Later that day, Holm was summoned to see the team manager, Herbert Holm (no relation), who informed her that the AOC had decided to throw her off the team. Not only had she broken the rules by getting ‘dissipated' but she had also been gambling–the night before Holm had won $100 at craps.