Hall of Famer & Decorated Pilot Bert Robinson (1922-2008)
As a 19-year-old, Bert Robinson was a halfback and kicker on the 1941 football team that was stranded in Honolulu after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Bert Robinson, a starting halfback and kicker on San Jose State University’s most historic football team, a decorated World War II pilot, and a member of the school’s Sports Hall of Fame, passed away on September 14, 2008, at age 86.
“We weren’t in first class, but the treatment was special,” said Mr. Robinson in a 2001 interview with the Contra Costa Times about the ocean liner trip from San Francisco that arrived in Honolulu on December 3, four days before President Franklin D. Roosevelt would deliver his “Day of Infamy” speech to the United States Congress and the American people. “We were walking on the beach when the shore patrol told us to get off the beach. When we asked why, they said something about an attack.”
Mr. Robinson, who lived most of his life in Santa Clara County, is one of 23 letter winners from the 1941 San Jose State football team that was stranded in Honolulu after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Spartans were scheduled to play the University of Hawaii on December 13 and Willamette College of Oregon on December 16 in a pair of charity football games. Neither game occurred.
“Here we were, just a bunch of kids, really, but we grew up quick. We had to. After riding around half the night in police cars, we had to take a bus from downtown Honolulu back to the Mona Hotel on Waikiki beach. The second night out, some trigger-happy Territorial Guardsman put a .30-caliber slug through the bus when the driver didn’t see the signal to stop. Nobody was hurt, but the Marine sergeant who officially commanded’ the bus was highly indignant.
“There was a lot of indiscriminate firing that night and for the next few nights. Nobody got hurt that we ever heard of, but the Territorials bagged a cow in the bushes by the Ala Wai Canal the night our bus was fired on,” Mr. Robinson said in a 1991 San Jose Mercury News interview.
19-years-old in 1941, Mr. Robinson was one of the Spartans who served in the Honolulu Police Department until December 19 when the first ocean convoy in wartime was allowed to leave Honolulu for San Francisco.
The three-sport Spartan who earned varsity letters in football (three), basketball (three) and baseball (one) reported for duty in 1942 in the Armed Forces Army Air Corps. A B-17 pilot in the 15th Air Force, 301st Bomb Group based in Italy, he completed 50 missions from 1942 through 1945 and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Mr. Robinson’s flying days continued after World War II. His friend and one-time teaching colleague at Campbell (Calif.) High, Dave Cripe, recalls Mr. Robinson relating the story how he was in the pilot’s seat and landed the San Jose State team plane at the Moscow-Pullman Airport that was illuminated only by car headlights the night before San Jose State defeated the University of Idaho, 26-14, in Moscow, on October 19, 1946.
Mr. Robinson capped off his San Jose State football career helping the Spartans to a January 1, 1947, 20-0 victory over Utah State in the Raisin Bowl, the school’s first post-season appearance. Sportswriters in attendance voted Mr. Robinson the game’s Outstanding Player.
The youngest of five children, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as a physical education major from San Jose State College. He was a physical education and driver’s education teacher and basketball coach for more than 30 years at Campbell High and Prospect High in nearby Saratoga, Calif. The two most notable students he coached were Don Hahn, the first centerfielder for the Montreal Expos Major League Baseball franchise in 1969, and University of California, Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos quarterback Craig Morton.
For 61 years, he and his wife, Sydney Robinson, were married before her death on July 16, 2007.
A daughter, Kathleen Robinson Carver, son, Dave Robinson, daughter-in-law JoAnn Robinson, five grandchildren and one great grandson, survive him.
A service celebrating Mr. Robinson’s life takes place, Saturday, September 27, the same day that the San Jose State football team faces the University of Hawaii in Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium. The service site is the Campbell Community Center located at 1 West Campbell Avenue in Campbell, Calif. A reception follows at the United Church of Christ Congregational Church, 400 West Campbell Avenue.
In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the American Cancer Society in the name of Bert Robinson.