AUSA graphic novel spotlights ex-NFL player who earned the Medal of Honor

The only pass that Maurice Britt caught during his brief NFL career went for a 45-yard touchdown.

Britt played nine games for the Detroit Lions in 1941 before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States’ entry into World War II. While Britt did not particularly distinguish himself on the professional football field, his exploits on the battlefield were extraordinary.

Britt is the subject of the latest installment in the Association of the United States Army’s graphic novel series, “Medal of Honor: Footsie Britt.” It chronicles a man who became the first soldier to earn the Army’s top combat decorations for valor during one war.

Taking the Fight to the Germans

When Britt arrived in North Africa in November 1942, he was a 23-year-old football player learning the intricacies of war as he went.

Britt proved a quick study. Part of Company L, 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Britt and his unit moved on to take part in the invasion of Sicily. Then on November 10, 1943—a year after leaving the United States for overseas—Britt was involved in the fight of his life on Mount Rotondo near the Mignano Gap in Italy.

As a counterattack of roughly a hundred Germans pummeled his heavily depleted company, then-Lt. Britt took retaliatory action at great personal risk. The fighting, often in close quarters, was intense. During the battle, enemy fire punctured Britt’s canteen and destroyed his field glasses, according to his Medal of Honor citation.

The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Britt absorbed several injuries, including a bullet to his side. Shrapnel from grenades wounded his chest, face, and hands as well. Still, Britt refused to stop, leading his men against seemingly insurmountable odds. Eyewitness accounts described Britt as “a one-man army,” running around and firing at any German in sight.

“Britt fired his rifle at them, he threw grenades, and at the finish, I believe he was even throwing rocks,” Lt. Col. Lionel McGarr, Britt’s commanding officer, was quoted as saying in a 2022 NFL.com article.

Britt was truly relentless. His citation credited him with throwing 32 grenades and taking out an enemy machine-gun crew. He killed five Germans, wounded some more Nazis, and helped capture four others.

Undoubtedly in pain because of his injuries, Britt only accepted medical treatment after the Americans secured Mount Rotondo.

“Utterly Demoralized, His Spirit Broken”

Britt received the Medal of Honor for his actions and also was promoted to captain. He accepted the Medal of Honor on the football field of his alma mater, the University of Arkansas, on June 7, 1944. By that time, he was coming to grips with the abrupt way that his time in a military uniform ended.

In February 1944, a tank shell destroyed Britt’s command post in Anzio, Italy, and cost him his right arm. In a way, Britt—who also sustained severe injuries in one of his feet—was fortunate. Of the 15 other men there with Britt at the time, five reportedly died. Several more, like Britt, clung to life.

After a quick-thinking private used some rope to staunch the bleeding, Britt was taken to a field hospital. He received five blood transfusions. Another injured soldier said Britt appeared “out of it… utterly demoralized, his spirit broken.”

Britt returned to the United States that spring, never to fight on the battlefield again.

Entering Business and Politics

While others marveled at Britt’s heroism, the onetime Lion didn’t believe he did anything special.

“War is not as heroic as we sometimes try to make it,” Britt told NFL Films in 1993. “It’s mostly filth and sorrow and grime and all the bad things and very little of the good things.”

After World War II, Britt—whose longtime nickname, “Footsie,” derived from his size 13 feet—became a successful businessman. He went on to become Arkansas’ lieutenant governor, replacing another Medal of Honor recipient, Nathan Gordon. Britt ran unsuccessfully to become the state’s governor in 1986.

Britt died on November 26, 1995, at the age of 76.

“Medal of Honor: Footsie Britt” is available to read online or download at the AUSA’s website. Dating to 2018, this is the 29th installment in the military nonprofit’s graphic novel series spotlighting American war heroes.

The book about Britt is the first of four graphic novels that AUSA plans to release this year. The next one will focus on World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and is tentatively due for release in July.

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