This NFL Player Lost Both Legs at Iwo Jima – and Rallied His Platoon to Keep Fighting

Jack Lummus' professional football career ended the moment a landmine blew off both of his legs at Iwo Jima.

Lummus, a Marine Corps first lieutenant who died on March 8, 1945, at the age of 29 years old, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor -- one of only two recipients of the United States' highest military honor ever to play in the NFL. Maurice Britt, an Army captain killed in Italy in November 1943, spent one season with the Detroit Lions.

"Jack suffered very little, because he didn't live long," Lummus' commanding officer wrote to his grieving mother. "I saw Jack soon after he was hit. With calmness, serenity and complacency, Jack said, 'The New York Giants lost a good man.' We all lost a good man."

Hailing from the small town of Ennis, Texas (a half-hour southeast of Dallas), Andrew Jackson Lummus Jr. joined the Army Air Corps in May 1941 but washed out of flight school after the wing of his plane struck a fence while taxiing. That temporary setback propelled Lummus to try out for the Giants, and the former Baylor University standout made the cut.

Lummus appeared in nine games for the Giants that season. They were hosting the Brooklyn Dodgers (not to be confused with the baseball team of the same name) on Dec. 7, 1941, when a midgame announcement alerted the shocked players and fans that the Japanese military had bombed Pearl Harbor. Lummus finished the season with the Giants, who lost to the Chicago Bears in the NFL championship game two weeks later, then enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve. After completing basic training, the 6-foot-3, 200-pound Lummus informed New York’s ownership of his decision, writing: "I'll never forget my rookie season with the Giants.”

Lummus was off to what is now Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia, and served in various leadership positions until landing in the first wave of U.S. troops at Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945. After three years of service, Lummus was finally about to see combat for the first time in what would become the bloodiest battle in the Corps' history, and if he felt any anxiety or trepidation, he didn’t convey it to the Marines under his command.

In charge of Company E, 2d Battalion, 27th Marines, 5th Marine Division as part of the V Amphibious Corps, Lummus and his rifle platoon encountered a band of Japanese soldiers near Kitano Point in early March. Prone to taking the offensive, a mindset that his men found inspiring, Lummus moved ahead by himself more than once to neutralize the enemy.

During "his heroic one-man assault," as his Medal of Honor citation described it, Lummus knocked out three enemy positions while grenades twice exploded near him, the second blast wounding his shoulder. Ignoring the pain, he kept fighting, instructing his platoon, imploring it to advance and directing the firing of tanks. Not even a landmine was enough to stop Lummus -- at least not initially.

"[Marines] watched in horror as he stood on the bloody stumps, calling them on," author Richard F. Newcomb wrote in "Iwo Jima: The Dramatic Account of the Epic Battle that Turned the Tide of World War II." "Several men, crying now, ran to him and, for a moment, talked of shooting him to stop the agony. But he was still shouting for them to move out, move out, and the platoon scrambled forward. Their tears turned to rage, they swept an incredible 300 yards over the impossible ground and at nightfall were on the ridge, overlooking the sea."

The Battle of Iwo Jima unfolded with about 70,000 Marines and sailors attempting to wrest control of the militarily strategic island. While vastly outnumbered, the Japanese troops knew much more about the territory's landscape -- after all, Japan had claimed Iwo Jima as its own since 1875 -- and had been preparing for the Marines' invasion for several months.

After 36 excruciatingly long and dangerous days and nights on an island that measured only eight square miles, the U.S. forces were finally victorious despite enduring more than 24,000 casualties, including 6,140 deaths. Roughly 22,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors were killed in the epic battle.

"Nearly seven hundred Americans gave their lives for every square mile," military historian Norman Cooper noted. "For every plot of ground the size of a football field, an average of more than one American and five Japanese were killed and five Americans wounded."

President Harry S. Truman posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to Lummus on May 5, 1946, which his mother accepted on Memorial Day later that month. Lummus was among 27 service members from the Marines and Navy to receive the military's highest individual award for their actions at Iwo Jima -- more than any individual battle in American history.

News of Lummus' death hit the Giants hard.

"Jack was a real goer right from the start and had football on his mind till his death," former teammate Ward Cuff said. "... There were a lot of tears in the dressing room."

Lummus' heroism dwarfed anything he did for the Giants in his short time with the franchise, but they never forgot his sacrifice. In 2015, with some of his surviving family members present, they inducted him into their Ring of Honor, which recognizes the franchise’s top contributors.

No one could have been more deserving.

Want to Know More About the Military?

Be sure to get the latest news about the U.S. military, as well as critical info about how to join and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox.