Black Fives

Vintage All-Black U.S. Military Basketball Teams: Bronson Field Bombers, 1945

Posted on May 12, 2009

(Part 3 in a series of posts honoring vintage all-black U.S. military basketball teams. Back to Part 2 | Skip to Part 4)

From the annals of World War II come the Bronson Field Bombers, an all-black U.S. Navy basketball team whose players were stationed at Bronson Field Naval Air Training Base in Pensacola, Florida.

During wartime, Bronson Field was used to train dive bombers, fighter pilots, and seaplane crew.

It’s best known as the naval base where baseball Hall of Fame member Ted Williams did his military training.

Like most of the armed forces, Bronson N.A.T.B. had well-organized sports and athletic activities that included a basketball league comprised of teams from other training centers, air fields, and naval stations in the surrounding Pensacola area.

Bronson’s team, known as the Bombers, won the N.A.T.B. basketball championship in early April 1945.

“The colored cagers established themselves as the hottest team in the circuit during the regular schedule by piling up 11 straight victories after four losses,” reported the Bronson Breeze, the airfield’s official bi-monthly newspaper.

The team learned from its early losses. “Though employing a razzle dazzle style of offensive play,” the Breeze shared, “the colored quintet realized certain defensive weaknesses, ‘ironed them out,’ polished up the offensive and hit the victory trail.”

The same week of the N.A.T.B. basketball championship, U.S. President Roosevelt died in office.  And within a week of the Breeze reporting the N.A.T.B. basketball title winners, German forces surrendered in Europe.