Found this in a sports section from OCT 1944. Former boxer Jack Dempsey is here, and according to the caption, gives a “good natured kidding” to another. And the final phrase, still in use today: “You should have seen the other guy.”
This is American copy writing bravado at its best. I was reading a chapter in Fussell’s Wartime about this. His argument (in short form here) is that news outlets were all about the “brighter side” as a way of keeping “morale” up. They wouldn’t (or couldn’t) really tell readers what was going on. Books published later would bridge this gap. Robert Sherrod’s Tarawa is an example.
Additionally, I had no idea Dempsey was in the service during WW2. I knew he was a boxer of considerable fame but that’s it. I grabbed this bit from his wikipedia entry:
When the United States entered World War II, Dempsey had an opportunity to refute any remaining criticism of his war record of two decades earlier. He volunteered for national service and was commissioned as a commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, charged with developing a physical fitness program for U.S. soldiers. Later, he served as a morale officer in the Pacific and in 1945 became a hero to many when, at age 49, he insisted on going into battle on Okinawa with a group of men he had trained.
I don’t know why I thought this, but I was thinking of the movie Coming to America, where in the barbershop, the old men are arguing about boxers. Jack Dempsey, I think, plays a prominent role in that argument of the greatest boxer ever.
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