When David Griffith stepped onto the campus of Moravian College in the fall of 1940, his arrival was finally the realization of a long-deferred dream for him. In 1937, as Griffith was entering his senior year in high school, America was still in the Great Depression. He was never a stranger to hard work to help out his family of 12, but even with his various jobs and helping out at home, he managed to play sports. As a senior at Prospect Park HS, he was captain and quarterback of the football team, All-Delaware County, captain of the basketball team, playing forward and guard, and an outstanding member of the baseball team. He was also president of the senior class and voted “Most Popular Boy in School”

After high school, college was but a dream for Griffith. With so little money at home, he went to work full-time and spent the summer playing league baseball.

“High school ended and no further education in sight, I went to work,” he wrote. “This was nothing new to me, and therefore I didn’t mind at all. Fall rolled around and an opportunity presented itself. I grabbed it and went to Perkiomen Prep for a year.”

As a scholarship student at Perkiomen Prep during the 1938-39 school year, Griffith enjoyed another stellar year playing sports.

“At the close of school, more work was in hand. Again, I pitched in and waited for fall. Regretfully, my savings were insufficient, and I had to work for a year.”

College was deferred for yet another year while he worked full-time at the Congoleum-Nairn Company, manufacturer of floor and wall coverings. He played on their basketball team. Things were still looking bleak for his college dream.

Enter Judson Timm.

Timm had been an All-American and All Big Ten at Illinois, as well as a track star holding the world record in the 60-yard dash. He was also the football coach at Moravian College in Bethlehem. Griffith’s athletic prowess at Prospect Park and Perkiomen Prep had caught Timm’s attention, and when Timm discovered that Griffith was working because he was unable to afford tuition, he arranged for a visit to the Griffith family home, where Dave was encouraged to submit an application to Moravian.

In April 1940, Griffith was informed that his application to Moravian College was accepted, and he would receive a half-tuition scholarship as well as on-campus work to pay for room and board. During his college years, he would work on campus in the Refectory dining hall as a server, in the office of the registrar, and also for the public relations department.

During Christmas breaks, he worked full-time at the Prospect Park post office during their busy season, and during the summers, he worked full time as a fitter and machinist’s helper at the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company Defense plant.

Freshman year

1940-41

Dave Griffith began classes at Moravian in September 1940 and made an immediate contribution to Coach Timm’s gridiron squad. He was billed as a “triple threat” and landed a job as a starter. He was in the top two in the passing department, became a booming punter despite never having punted before, and was one of the leading ground gainers.

Timm stated in a press release, “He’s an elusive runner. Enemy tacklers don’t seem to know where he is.” In early November, Griffith’s mother died after a prolonged illness, and he missed a week of school. The Greyhounds only allowed their opponents 15 points that year, as compared to 182 points scored against the other seven teams by Moravian. Griffith was honored with his varsity letter at the Bethlehem Kiwanis Club postseason banquet honoring the Moravian College Football Team. Guest speaker at the banquet was Olympian Jim Thorpe.

Immediately following football season, Griffith developed pneumonia, which landed him in St. Luke’s Hospital for some time. This delay caused him to experience a low-key basketball season, playing on the junior varsity squad during his recovery.

Some of his contemporaries thought that Griffith was big-league material when it came to baseball. He played at first base and shortstop as a freshman and garnered hitting accolades. Moravian’s Comenian newspaper certainly noticed as the season progressed. “Dave Griffith proved conclusively to all watchers of the game that he was better than the average man on a college baseball team. His batting average of .580 is probably the highest ever recorded by a stickman wearing a Moravian uniform.”

At the end of the school year, he returned home to work at the Westinghouse defense plant and played summer league baseball, where he topped all Delaware County batters with a final .422 batting average.

Sophomore year

1941-42

During Fall 1941 before the United States entered the Second World War, the Moravian Greyhounds once again had an outstanding season, allowing their opponents only 32 points in eight games to the Blue & Grey’s 156 points. By the end of the season, Griffith figured in the headlines for Jud Timm’s winning combination, and his name was on everyone’s lips in Bethlehem.

Newspapers claimed “Dave was one of the workhorses on the team, doing the bulk of the punting and passing and aggregating yardage. Critics readily agree that the young triple threater is easily one of the best backs in the East. His worth was best shown when he was sidelined in the Albright game because of an injured hip and this was lost by Moravian, 13-0.”

As the season ended, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war began having a substantial effect on campus life. As soon as football season ended, Griffith was training for the basketball squad and soon began making a contribution. Basketball was not his preferred sport, but he played it solidly.

In the spring of 1942, he again turned to baseball, his sport of choice, and assumed a starting position at shortstop in a war-shortened eight-game season, mandated by the national gas rationing program.

Other things, however, were weighing more heavily on Griffith’s mind. In April he wrote to college dean Roy Hassler, “Do you think it wise to enlist now, or wait until I’m called? If you do, please send me the needed forms for enlisting under the V-7 program. I think I shall enlist in it anyway,”

The United States Navy Reserve Midshipmen’s School, known as the Navy College Training Program, V-7, was announced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt June 26, 1940, to recruit 36,000 naval reserve officers to command the vastly expanding fleet in preparation for the war effort.

Griffith started on May 4 at his second summer at Westinghouse as a machinist’s helper. “I like it a lot, but it is seven days a week,” he wrote. “I’m saving my money in the hopes that I can return to school this fall and complete my last two years.”

Dean Hassler did not advise one way or the other regarding Dave’s enlisting. He laid out several scenarios in his response. Specifically, regarding the V-7 program, he stated, “If you pass the physical examination, you will be permitted to complete your college education. In the event you are accepted, Selective Service immediately becomes inoperative in your case because in reality you will already be in the Navy under deferred enlistment.”

By the fall of 1942, Griffith had decided to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserve, Candidates Class for Commission.

Junior year

1942-43

In the fall of 1942, the Greyhounds had a new head football coach. Former head coach Jud Timm had departed for Yale, where he would spend three years as a backfield coach before taking a long-term career position at Princeton. That news, however, was overshadowed by the news that Dave Griffith’s younger brother Don, would be joining him on the football team at Moravian.

“Dave will be in his third season at Moravian, where he is one of the best triple threaters playing college football,” a newspaper reported. “Fans feel that in many ways young Don has shaped up as well as his big brother and expect great things from him.”

Dave Griffith was the main cog in the Moravian backfield and his kicking and booming punts were features of games. Moravian went on to tally 111 points against their opponents’ 26 points for the season in eight games. In the final game of the season, Griffith ran in a touchdown, and connected on touchdown passes to several teammates including, in what would turn out to be the final touchdown pass of his Moravian College playing career, a 34-yard aerial to his brother Don.

So outstanding was Dave Griffith’s junior year playing that he was named a member of the 1942 Associated Press All-Pennsylvania Honorable Mention Team. This was three decades before the NCAA established the concept of Divisions I, II and III, and he was on a team alongside honorees from Penn State, Pitt, Lafayette, Penn, Lehigh and Villanova.

In September 1942, there were 163 men enrolled at the all-men Moravian College. By April 1943, only 97 men remained on campus. One of those who had withdrawn was Dave’s brother Don, who left after his first semester. Dean Hassler wrote to the boys’ father, “Though I suggested that he (Don) try enlistment in the Naval Reserve program, he felt that the urge to get into the “scrap” was too strong for further delay.” Because the student body had been reduced to just 58 percent of its September numbers, baseball for the spring of 1943 and all sports thereafter were suspended indefinitely.

By February 1943, Griffith knew that he would be unable to continue his quest for a degree in economics in business administration, due to necessary curtailments ordered by the Moravian College Board of Trustees. In fact, most of the board members wanted to close the college altogether. In April 1943, during what some have called Moravian’s “darkest hour,” board member Archibald Johnston, first mayor of the incorporated city of Bethlehem, and a president at Bethlehem Steel, with words of vision, faith, and encouragement, convinced the board to keep the school open despite deficit spending. (His instincts were correct. By 1947, with the G.I. Bill, student enrollment at the college was burgeoning at 50 percent and more above pre-war norms.)

In February, Dean Hassler wrote to Dave’s father, “…if he continues, he will be able to meet requirements for a degree from Moravian. But because of the fact that he is in the Marine Corps Enlisted Reserve, he will probably be called for active service before the completion of his college degree here, but may be assigned to one of the colleges selected by the Navy for further academic training.”

That was the scenario that unfolded, as a May follow-up noted Dave’s withdrawal from Moravian at the end of the semester and indicated that “Naturally, we regret the situation which makes it necessary for so many men to interrupt their academic program,” Dean Hassler wrote, “but we are happy in the fact that Dave will continue in service and further his education through the Marine Corps Reserve Program. As soon as he receives orders, he should immediately communicate with this office so that we may submit a transcript of his record to the institution to which he is assigned.”

The institution to which he is assigned” turned out to be Muhlenberg College in Allentown. Muhlenberg was one of 131 colleges and universities throughout the United States selected by the federal government to run the Navy and Marine Corps College Reserve Program, known as the V-12 Navy College Training Program. The V-12 program was established to meet both the immediate and long-range needs for commissioned officers to man ships, planes, and command troops called to duty. Participants were required to take 17 academic units a semester and complete at least 9.5 physical training hours a week. The program would grant bachelor’s degrees to the future officers. From the V-12 program, most of the Marines went to boot camp and then to the three-month Officer Candidate Course at Quantico, Va. David Griffith was accepted into the Marine Corps V-12 section of the program.

After three years garnering accolades as a Moravian College Greyhound, Griffith was a reluctant Mule. Muhlenberg had been a chief rival of Moravian. On his Muhlenberg College application, Question #21 asked, “Why have you selected Muhlenberg?” to which he stated succinctly, “The Marines selected it for me.” He reported to Muhlenberg in the fall 1943. The campus seemed less like a college and more like a military installation. “The marching of feet, the cadence count by Navy chiefs, bugle calls all day,” he wrote. “Reveille early the morning, ‘colors’ twice a day, mess call three times day, mail call, fire call, ‘Tattoo’ to end the day, and ‘Taps’ were all sounds that became familiar.”

The V-12 program allowed its participants to complete in intercollegiate sports. Griffith landed a starting spot-on Coach Alvin “Doggie” Julian’s gridiron squad. The team was composed of Navy and Marine trainees who were stationed on the campus. Coach Julian was charged with molding together from scratch a team from men, who, the previous year, had played at a myriad colleges and “used every system under the sun.”

The opening game of the season was against Yale in New Haven at the Yale Bowl. The front page of the Sunday, Sept. 12 New York Times sports section featured a large photo of Dave Griffith captioned “Muhlenberg Ace Carries the Ball in Eastern College Football Opener.” The accompanying story recognized the original colleges of Yale’s opponents and noted that “Dave Griffith, 180 pound, 6 foot halfback from Moravian College, was the big gun in the attack. He was doing the kicking and passing and also most of the running.” Coaching against him at Yale was his former Moravian coach, Jud Timm.

Military service 1944-45

In June 1944, Griffith was formally enlisted in the Marines. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant, completed his Reserve Officers Training School in Quantico and attended infantry training at Camp Lejeune. He joined Charlie Company, First Battalion, as a platoon leader in fall 1944. He was part of the expeditionary force which made the amphibious landing on Iwo Jima Feb. 19, 1945. The island, with its airfields and proximity to Japan, was considered ideal as a base for U.S. fighter planes, however the Japanese commander had turned the tiny eight-square-mile island into a fortress of bunkers, pillboxes, miles of underground tunnels, fortified caves and trenches, with the advantage of high ground on the volcanic island. What was expected by the Marines to be a battle of a few days became five weeks.

By March 8, Griffith was the sole survivor of the full complement of officers that had made the amphibious landing. That afternoon, the First Battalion’s lines were hit by an extraordinarily heavy Japanese barrage. Among those killed in the shellfire was Lt. Griffith. He was awarded the Purple Heart.

Remembering

Friends, sportswriters and former opponents remembered Dave Griffith with admiration and respect. The Muhlenberg Weekly April 6, 1945 edition carried a photo of him in his Moravian uniform and a story. The closing paragraph read, “Griffith’s spectacular play with Muhlenberg in the 1943 season is well remembered by local fans.”

Bill Burk, sportswriter for Griffith’s hometown newspaper, The Chester Times, had written about him for years. Jud Timm had been the head football coach at Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University in Chester, Pa.). “When Coach Jud Timm went up to Moravian College in Bethlehem in 1939, he said, ‘Bill, if you have any good boys around, send them up.’ And one day, he stopped in to see us about a young fellow named Dave Griffith, who was on our list. Dave was then a year out of Prospect Park High and had been a sensation at Perkiomen Prep. ‘I think I have something to offer him, if it’s OK with his family’. We assured him that the Griffiths were very fine people to get along with and they were anxious for Dave to get a good education. His deeds made history at Moravian College. He could thread the eye of a needle with a pigskin up to 80 yards and put it in a peach basket at distances over that. He didn’t look as if he was running very hard, but he could churn yardage when it was needed most and was unstoppable inside the 20-yard line where the road was roughest. He was the key man of a Moravian team that only lost a few games in his years there. Dave was big league material in baseball. Moravian had an undefeated team and the Prospect Park first sacker hit over .500. Dave’s younger brother Don joined him at Moravian during Dave’s junior year. Don was always self-willed and was always in hot water, but Dave had a good influence on his brother and got him a scholarship to Moravian, where he joined Dave on the football team, and made good when the war came along.”

Family members tell a tale of the brothers meeting shortly before Iwo Jima. A platoon was marching along the road when it was overtaken by a convoy of vehicles. Dave Griffith jumped out of one of the trucks and ran to greet his brother Don. Dave was dressed down for fraternizing with a non-commissioned officer. He responded, “Go ahead and court martial me, then. That’s my brother!” Sportswriter Burk added, “They were teammates again on the fightingest outfit ever banded together. When the going was toughest, you could always count on the Griffiths.”

David Griffith was originally buried in the Marine Cemetery on Iwo Jima. His family had his body brought home at their expense a few years later. By 1968, the United States government had returned the island of Iwo Jima to the Japanese government after all bodies of fallen Americans were removed to the United States. David Griffith now rests in the Media Cemetery in Media, Pa. He was inducted into the Moravian College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.

For more information on the day-by-day events of the Battle of Iwo Jima:

https://1-24thmarines.com/the-battles/iwo-jima