Not only was Beau called to service, but Bob Montgomery was sworn into the Army on the same day as Beau, June 2. While Jack was dispatched to Fort Benning, Montgomery was stationed at Keesler Field, Mississippi.
World War II was still raging since the United States joined the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. By 1943, the U.S. had turned Japanese forces back in the Pacific through the Battle of Midway and Guadalcanal. Germany was defeated at Stalingrad, and Allied forces took back North Africa. In early 1944, the Soviets finally broke through the 900-day Siege of Leningrad by Germany. Now, the focus was on taking back France from the Axis forces. On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched their D-Day attack on the beaches of Normandy to take back German-occupied France.
Money was needed to finance the United States’ war efforts. Beginning on May 1, 1941, the U.S. government sold war bonds, or Series E bonds, to raise the necessary funds. Overseen by the War Finance Committee, the Series E bonds yielded 2.9 percent return on a ten-year maturity. Although below the market return rate, the purchase of war bonds aroused an emotional connection in American citizens, reminding them that they were helping their soldiers abroad and doing their patriotic duty by promoting democracy and liberty.
Through the War Advertising Council, a massive advertising campaign was conducted by both the government and private entities to encourage Americans to purchase bonds. Ads appeared on radio, television, and newspapers. Bond rallies were held across the country. Posters covered storefronts. Even Hollywood celebrities joined the campaign. Bette Davis, for example, sold $2,000,000 worth of bonds within a 48-hour period. Others donated memorabilia for auctions to raise funds. Movie theaters and sporting venues often offered free admission with the purchase of war bonds. Comic book heroes also joined the effort, promoting the purchase of bonds.
Sporting events were extraordinarily prolific in selling war bonds. For example, the New York Journal-American newspaper sponsored an All-Star War Bond game played on August 26, 1943, at the Polo Grounds in New York. The exhibition game featured members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, including Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Walter Johnson. Attendance required the purchase of war bonds ranging from $18.75 to $1 million for one of the fifty front row boxes. Over 38,000 people attended, raising $800 million in war bonds.
The government was ingenious in staging events to sell war bonds. Stanley Oshan, head of the War Finance Committee, Special Events Subcommittee, was especially innovative. On June 26, 1944, the War Bonds Sports Committee presented a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees and New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City. A brainchild of Oshan, the event was known as the tri-cornered baseball game. Each team came to bat six times in the same nine-inning game and alternated playing in the field. The Dodgers won the game with a final score of Dodgers 5, Yankees 1 and Giants 0. More importantly, the event raised $56,500,000 in war bond sales. All in all, over 85 million Americans purchased over $185.7 billion worth of war bonds during World War II.
Days after Beau and Montgomery were sworn into the Army, Stanley Oshan began floating the idea of a boxing match between Beau and Montgomery, with admission purchased through war bonds. When asked about fighting Montgomery in a war bonds bout, Beau quickly agreed. “I was so proud that I could do something for this great country,” said Jack. “I said sure I’d fight Montgomery.”1 “It was for our country, the country we live in,” he explained. “I felt I was doing something to help win the war.”2 Montgomery also enthusiastically agreed.
Jack and Montgomery had fought three incredible title bouts against each other within the last year. Montgomery won the first match, capturing Jack’s lightweight belt. Six months later, Jack regained his crown, only to lose it again to Montgomery four months later. The paid attendance for their three fights averaged 18,592, producing total gates of $303,327. Moreover, Beau Jack had been the biggest draw at the Garden over the past year and a half with gates totaling $1,035,279. With admission to the upcoming bout requiring the purchase of war bonds, it was sure to be a triumph for the War Finance Committee. Initial estimates expected the bout to raise $50,000,000 in war bonds.
Planning for the bout began almost immediately. First, both fighters had to receive permission from their commanding officers. On Monday, July 10, Max Kase, chairman of the War Bond Sports Committee, confirmed that both Jack and Montgomery had received the necessary permissions. A week later, it was publicly announced that Beau Jack and Bob Montgomery would meet for the fourth time in a ten-round overweight bout at Madison Square Garden on August 4. “The meeting between Beau Jack and Bob Montgomery,” exclaimed Stanley Osban, Treasury Department representative, “will produce a tremendous (and needed) boom in the sale of small War Bonds.”3
The soldiers began training for the contest at their respective Army bases. Subsequently, Montgomery went to Philadelphia for intensive training and sparring, and both Bob and Beau finished their workouts at Stillman’s Gym. Fort Benning’s boxing instructor, Sgt. Bryant Bass, and Solomon Stewart of Providence, Rhode Island served as Beau’s sparring partners to help him tune up for the fight.
On July 31, at a press conference with Nevil Ford, State Chairman of the War Finance Committee for New York, both fighters appeared in uniform to promote the bout. Four days later they would enter the ring against each other at the Garden in a ten-round exhibition sanctioned by the Army for the benefit of war bond sales. History would be made and needed funds would be raised.
In honor of their commitment to the war efforts, Jack and Montgomery agreed to fight each other for free. “While neither will get a [cent] for their labors,” wrote Tommy Holmes of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “Beau and Montgomery will have one distinction—that of stuffing enough coin into Uncle Sam’s Treasury—through war bonds of every denomination—to, at least, send the Nazis and the Japs into their lairs through air power.”4 Not only did Montgomery and Jack agree to contribute their efforts for the cause, but all the fighters, promoters, managers, referees and judges also acquiesced in donating their time and services. Promoter Mike Jacobs consented to handle promotional details with expenses paid by Gillette Safety Razor Co., which broadcast of the fight through the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports.
The fourth battle between former lightweight champion Beau Jack and the current lightweight champion, Bob Montgomery, was enthusiastically proclaimed the “War Bonds Fight.” Fans had to purchase war bonds to gain admittance to the fight. Seats for the match ranged from $25 to $100,000. To reserve a ringside seat, fans had to purchase a $100,000 war bond. The $100,000 ticket price for one of the 72 ringside seats is the highest price ever charged for a sporting event in the United States. Today, accounting for inflation and cost of living increases, the ticket price of $100,000 is equivalent to $1,416,804.60. Sales for the event were sensational. Two days before the fight, over $13,000,000 in bonds had already been sold.
War Bonds ticket for bout between Bob Montgomery and Beau Jack, 1944 (courtesy John DiSanto, Philly Boxing History Collection).
Hundreds of people purchased bonds and then nobly gave away their tickets to servicemen. The first three rows bought were turned over to wounded soldiers who had recently returned from the war. The day before the bout, the War Finance Committee made a marvelous announcement.
Officials of the War Finance Committee of the U.S. Treasury Department announced today that buyers, who had paid a total of $14,100,000 for bonds, had contributed these 260 seats to wounded veterans. There are 72 front row seats at $100,000 per seat; 88 second row seats at $50,000 per seat and 100 third row seats at $25,000 a piece. The men who have bought these seats, many of them famous first row “regulars” at all the fights, have consented to move back to seats from the fourth to the seventh rows so that the wounded veterans may have the foremost privileges at the fight.5
Practically all of the ringside seats purchased were transferred to wounded veterans. Even Bowman Milligan and Beau Jack each purchased $1,000 worth of bonds, leaving the tickets at the box office to be distributed among U.S. servicemen. Mike Jacobs also chipped in, buying forty-three bonds for distribution.
Record-breaking heat of 100 degrees and humidity greeted fans on fight day. Even though Montgomery’s title was not on the line, interest in the fight was extremely high, given the tremendous battles fought between the two warriors in their previous meetings. Despite the heat, almost 16,000 patriotic spectators and wounded servicemen turned out.
Both men came in about three pounds heavier than their previous match. At the pre-fight weigh-in, Jack weighed 138¾ pounds. Montgomery weighed 137½ pounds. Given his two previous victories, Montgomery was listed as a five to nine favorite.
With thunderous applause and enthusiasm from the animated audience, the opening bell sounded. Invigorated by the crowd, both combatants came out fighting fast and hard. Taking command quickly, Beau forced the fight over the notoriously slow-starting Montgomery. In the first round, he landed a flurry of lefts to Monty’s midsection. Weaving and bobbing, Beau then mounted a left overhand attack, hammering Montgomery’s head. Not to be outdone, Monty connected with a hard right to Jack’s nose in the second round, producing a stream of blood. In the third stanza, Beau caught Montgomery with several looping lefts to his jaw that rattled the distressed champion. Throwing punches from all conceivable angles, Beau’s blows were sharp and accurate, keeping the champion off balance for much of the night.
Soldiers filled the ringside section as well as the two rows behind it. Veterans of campaigns in Italy and Normandy, most of the honored soldiers had received Purple Hearts for their efforts. Many were even wearing their hospital robes. Sportswriter Bob Considine mingled with the injured veterans sitting ringside recording as much of their overwhelming enthusiasm as he could.
“Yipee! What a hook!” yelled a toothless young vet with his left arm encased in a cast that bent the arm out and forward in the manner of a boxer delivering a left hook. He had forgotten all about his arm, and his shoulder, raked by machinegun fire in Italy.6
Repeatedly, the injured and mangled men sitting ringside told Considine that this was a night they would never forget.
In the fifth round, both fighters took a break and began clinching and wrestling on the ropes. Beau’s blistering tempo began to catch up with him. As Bob came alive in the sixth, seventh, and eighth rounds, Beau began to tire from the rapid pace he established in the first five rounds. Monty’s best stanza was the seventh round when he stung Beau, landing hard punches to his body after pinning him against the ropes. Sgt. Harold Hargens, one of the injured servicemen sitting ringside, exclaimed “What a punch!” after Beau landed a whistling uppercut on Monty’s chin to fight his way off the ropes.
One dark night in England, planes flew over Sgt. Hargens, an Eighth Air Force engineer, and four other men from his company, dropping a 1,000-pound bomb within ten feet of them. Hargens, the recipient of a Purple Heart, painfully recalled, “Killed all the others, and I still don’t know how I got off. Collapsed a lung and got my shoulder and leg, but that’s all.”7
Monty focused on Beau’s body in the eighth round, giving Beau a terrible beating. After an even ninth, Beau called upon a measure of reserved energy to rebound and take the final round. When the scorecards were announced, Judge Frank Forbes scored the fight even, five rounds to five. Judge Bill Healy scored six rounds for Beau, three for Montgomery and one even. Referee Billy Cavanaugh gave Beau six rounds, Montgomery two, and called two even. In one of his proudest moments and with fervor for his country, Beau evened his record against Montgomery with a split decision victory.
Their fourth match was the final meeting between Beau Jack and Bob Montgomery. They had now fought 55 rounds against each other. Each of their four contests went the distance, and there were no knockdowns. The total scoring tally for the 55 rounds was 78 rounds for Beau Jack, 77 for Bob Montgomery, and 10 even. Ironically, the favored fighter lost each bout.
The crowd, particularly the wounded veterans, loved the affair. In acknowledgment, the next day sportswriter Harold Conrad remarked, “[n]ever has there been, and probably never will there be as enthusiastic a fight crowd in the Garden as there was last night.”8 He also spoke about the joy it provided the veterans sitting ringside.
One of these ringsiders was Lt. Ted Lawler, Fleet Air Arm of the British Navy. Ted lost both of his legs when his plane cracked up. One of Ted’s prize moments for the rest of his life will probably be the ticket stub he clutched. “Think of it,” he said as he displayed the wet, torn piece of cardboard. “Someone paid $100,000 for this seat. Just wait till I send this stub back to England and tell them I actually saw a fight in the great Madison Square Garden.”9
It was an incredible evening, stirring the souls of those present with nationalistic pride and enthusiasm.
The “War Bonds Fight” set a monumental record, producing the richest gate in boxing history, with $35,864,900 in war bonds sold to benefit the United States’ efforts in World War II. Adjusting for inflation, today that would be the equivalent of $508,135,552.16.10 In all, over 15,822 bonds were bought. In an inspiring statement following the bout, Beau exclaimed, “That was for the country I live in. That was the proudest thing that could happen to me.”11 Montgomery said, “I’d like to fight him again—for nothing.”12
Montgomery retired from boxing in 1950 with an overall professional record of 75–19–3. He wore the NYSAC lightweight world crown in 1943, and from 1944 to 1947. After retiring, Bob worked as a salesman and actively served his community working with street gangs in Philadelphia. Bob also managed to become Philadelphia’s first black boxing promoter, staging his inaugural show at the Blue Horizon on October 5, 1971. “Bobcat” Bob Montgomery was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995.
Both fighters received resounding praise for their efforts. Perhaps the most meaningful praise bestowed upon Beau came in the form of a letter from his commanding officer at Fort Benning, Brigadier General William H. Hobson.
Dear Pvt. Walker:
It has been a great source of pride for me in telling others about our fine post, to be able to mention you, a boxing champion, in our midst.
Fort Benning has long been the training center for infantry leaders—leaders of men and soldiers. Before you came to our post you had already climbed the ladder to national fame and had been known to millions as a boxing champion in your own right.
You had become a champion in the ring and have now come to our great army post to embark upon your military training and win laurels in another field—that of the soldier.
While you have been assigned to the Reception Center only about two months, your attention to duty, your interest in your fellow man, and your desire to teach many of them the fundamentals of boxing have proved a great inspiration to many of our newborn soldiers in our Special Training Unit and the Reception Center. Although, as the newspapers say, you lost the world championship several months ago to Bob Montgomery, just recently you came back and won the decision over the champion.
The nation at large is indebted to you and Montgomery for being willing to participate in that non-title bout in Madison Square Garden which netted more than $35,000,000 in the sale of war bonds for the United States Treasury.
Your success in the ring and surely your success in the army should continue to be an inspiration to your colleagues, both in and out of uniform. Congratulations to you upon your splendid contribution to the current was effort and your prowess as a fighter.
Sincerely yours,
Brigadier General, U.S.A.,
WM. H. HOBSON
Commanding13
Brigadier General Hobson praised Beau for being an inspiration, his heartfelt concern for his fellow man, and his desire to teach. Moreover, he thanked both Jack and Montgomery for their willingness to freely participate in the “War Bonds Fight.” Beau was honored. “I was only an ordinary soldier,” declared Jack, “and that night at the Garden fans had to buy war bonds to see me fight. They bought $35,864,000 worth of them bonds. That’s one memory I’m going to keep.”14 Beau considered it an honor to fight for his country.
In 1982, thirty-seven years after the “War Bonds Fight,” Beau received a certificate of appreciation from the Treasury Department and a $100 savings bond for his undertaking. “Mr. Walker, we recognize you not only as a great boxer but as a great American,” Treasury representative Charles Crownover said.15 It was a small token of appreciation, but one that touched Beau deeply.
Beau was on top of the world as he went back to the Army, but Chick suffered tragedy in September. His wife Charlotte had been ill for some time, but on September 25, she was found dead in the cellar of their home. Ending her own suffering, she committed suicide at the age of 44, leaving behind her husband, four sons, and two daughters.
Beau cherished his time serving his country in the Army, especially when he had the opportunity to exhibit his boxing prowess. From time to time, Beau fought in boxing exhibitions with his friend and sparring mate, Sgt. Bryant Bass. On one occasion, he boxed before five hundred paratroopers who were about to head overseas. Afterward, he remarked about how they wrote him, expressing that they would always remember what he did for them. He inspired soldiers through his boxing and his sheer determination.
In November, Col. John P. Edgerly, commanding officer of the reception center at Fort Bragg, announced that Beau’s time in the Army would soon be over due to physical disqualifications. Although undergoing treatment, Beau’s knee that he had injured before the Ruffin bout was not healing correctly. Col. Edgerly’s comments, however, were a little premature, as Beau would serve another ten months in the Army.
1. David Condon, “In the Wake of the News,” Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1969, 1.
2. Michael Hirsley, “Beau Jack: Heroic, Dignified,” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 2000, 58.
3. Bob Considine, “On the Line,” Democrat and Chronicle, July 14, 1944, 20.
4. Tommy Holmes, “Beau and Bob Make Real Match,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 3, 1944, 17.
5. Harold Conrad, “260 Wounded to See Bond Fight,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 3, 1944, 17.
6. Bob Considine, “Mangled Veterans Appear to Have No Hate in Hearts,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 6, 1944, 26.
7. Ibid.
8. Harold Conrad, “Jack and Monty Bout Nets $35,864,900,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 5, 1944, 6.
9. Ibid.
10. https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=15000&year=1944; accessed October 26, 2018, 12:16 pm.
11. http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/boxer-beau-jack-got-his-start-augusta-national
12. Harold Conrad, “Jack and Monty Bout Nets $35,864,900,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 5, 1944, 6.
13. Tom Kenny, “Crack O’ Dawn,” Augusta Chronicle, August 20, 1944, 8.
14. David Condon, “In the Wake of the News,” Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1969, 1.
15. Elliott Denman, “Beau Jack Fought for His Uncle Sam,” Asbury Park Press, June 3, 1982, 43.