Ventnor City 1945

     There was a series of tournaments held in the small New Jersey town of Ventnor City during World War Two that it had been hoped would become the American vsersion of Hasting, but after the war the Ventnor City Invitational ceased to exist, making the 1945 tournament the last in the series. 
     These Ventnor tournaments featured many leading U.S. masters of the day as participants with the exception of those at the very top like Reshevsky, Fine, Kashdan, Horowitz and Steiner. 
     Play began on July 1st, 1945 in the auditorium on the Municipal Pier. It was the seventh annual invitation masters tournament sponsored by Ventnor City. Mayor Harry S. Hodson was the chairman of the local committee and Richard W. Wayne was the tournament director. Wayne was a director of the USCF in the 1940s and lived in Ventnor City. According to a 1974 article by Robert Durkin appearing in the Atlantic Chess News, Wayne was (in 1974) 80 years old and he had been a motorcycle test driver in his younger days and a Sergeant Major in the British Army. 
    There were some interesting news stories during the tournament. On July 1st U.S. troops landed on Balikpapan, a seaport city on the east coast of the island of Borneo. The Japanese had occupied Balikpapan, which had oil refineries owned by Royal Dutch Shell, since 1942 when they massacred many of the Europeans they had captured. 
     The first Major League baseball superstar to return from the war was Hank Greenberg who homered in his 1st game when Detroit beat Philadelphia 9-5. On October 16, 1940 Greenberg was the first American League player to register for the peace time draft, but he was classified as 4F (unacceptable for military service) because he had flat feet. Rumors began circulating that he had bribed somebody to get the 4F classification, so in April of 1941, at his own request, he was re-examined and found fit for service. After playing 19 games for the Detroit Tigers he was drafted on May 7, 1941.  His salary plummeted from what would be almost a million dollars a year in today's dollars to $4,800 a year in today's dollars.
     He served as an anti-tank gunner and was discharged on December 5, 1941, just two days before Pearl Harbor was bombed, when the Army released everybody over 27 years old.
     In February, 1942 he re-enlisted, the first Major League player to do so, as a Sergeant in the Army Air Corps. He then graduated from Officer Candidates School and was assigned to a physical education program, but after promotion to Captain he requested overseas duty and was sent to the China-Burma-India Theater where he scouted locations for B29 bomber bases and was a physical training officer.  He returned to duty in the U.S. in 1944.  Greenberg served a total of 47 months, longer than any other Major League player.
     Also in baseball the Washington Senators' catcher Rick Ferrell caught a record 1,722 games.
     In other news, on July 4th, besides the usual Independence Day celebrations, Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson gave Britain's agreement to use the atomic bomb against Japan at the Combined Policy Committee in Washington D. C. 
     Friday, July 6th was a very important day in history.  In Los Angeles, Bert John Gervis Jr. was born. He was later to become Burt Ward, Batman's sidekick Robin in the television series Batman (1966–1968). A little over 2,000 miles to the east of Los Angeles, I was born. 
     The tournament was won by Weaver W. Adams who got nicked for only one loss to a 17 year old high school student named Robert Byrne who received the best-played game prize for his victory. 
     A surprise was the third place tie with E.S. Jackson by the unknown Philadelphia player Bernard Keltz who was playing in his first major tournament. Nothing is known about Keltz. Another unknown player, also from Philadelphia, was Adolph Regan. It is assumed that Keltz and Regan were local players of some promise or that they were invited as fill-ins. Nobody knows. 
     At the time 18 year old Harry Yanofsky (Abe Yanofsky's younger brother) from Winnipeg was considered an up and comer. Other than winning the U.S. Inter-collegiate Championship in 1946 not much is known about him. Chessmetrics lists him only on the March, 1946 rating list with an assigned rating of 2246. 
     Matthew Green (1915-2006) was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended high school in in New York City. He played in the U.S. Championships of 1940 and 1942. He won the state of New Jersey championship in 1957. I have posted on Walter Suesman HERE and Martin C. Stark HERE.

1) Weaver Adams 7.0-2.0 
2) Anthony Santasiere 6.0-3.0 
3-4) E.S. Jackson and Bernard Keltz 5.0-4.0 
5-7) Matthew Green, Adolph Regan and Martin Stark 4.5-4.5 
8) Robert Byrne 4.0-5.0 
9) Walter Suesman 3.5-5.5 
10) Harry Yanofsky 1.0-8.0