From Boxing Ring to Battlefield
The Life of War Hero Lew Jenkins
By (author) Gene Pantalone Foreword by John DiSanto
Publication date:
15 November 2018Length of book:
256 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersDimensions:
237x158mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781538116746
World champion boxer Lew Jenkins fought his whole life. As a child, he fought extreme poverty during the Great Depression; in his twenties, he fought as a professional boxer and became a world champion; and at the pinnacle of his boxing career, Jenkins fought in World War II and the Korean War.
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield: The Life of War Hero Lew Jenkins details for the first time this extraordinary story. Despite his talent for boxing, Jenkins often fought and trained in drunken stupors. And though he became the world lightweight champion, he soon wasted his ring title and all his money. Unable to find meaning in life at the peak of his boxing success, Jenkins discovered values to which he could cling during World War II and the Korean War. His efforts earned him one of the highest decorations for bravery, the Silver Star.
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield features exclusive interviews with Lew Jenkins’s son and grandson, providing a personal perspective on the life of this complicated war hero. The first biography of Jenkins, this book will fascinate boxing fans and historians alike.
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield: The Life of War Hero Lew Jenkins details for the first time this extraordinary story. Despite his talent for boxing, Jenkins often fought and trained in drunken stupors. And though he became the world lightweight champion, he soon wasted his ring title and all his money. Unable to find meaning in life at the peak of his boxing success, Jenkins discovered values to which he could cling during World War II and the Korean War. His efforts earned him one of the highest decorations for bravery, the Silver Star.
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield features exclusive interviews with Lew Jenkins’s son and grandson, providing a personal perspective on the life of this complicated war hero. The first biography of Jenkins, this book will fascinate boxing fans and historians alike.
Lew Jenkins was a fighter’s fighter. Pantalone, an independent boxing historian, charts Jenkins’s career inside and outside the ring in this fast-moving biography. In the ring, he was a devastating puncher, especially for a lightweight. A full 52 of his 74 victories came by the way of knockout. But he lost 42 contests, a significant sum for a top fighter. The text puts these numbers in context: during the 1930s, when boxers fought often and against quality opponents, win-loss records looked different from today. Jenkins held the lightweight title from May 1940 until just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, an event that changed Jenkins’s life. Before the war, Jenkins battled alcohol and bad life choices as much as his ring opponents—he admitted himself that his "two toughest opponents were Jack Daniels and Harley Davidson”—but service in WW II (and later the Korean War) showed him at his best. He enlisted in the Coast Guard during WW II, was deployed overseas, and participated in a series of crucial landings in North Africa, Sicily, mainland Italy, and France. He was awarded the Silver Star in the Korean War. Although he returned to the ring after WW II, his skills were gone.