Frank shipped out to Liverpool, England from Brooklyn Harbor on August 8th, 1918 aboard the troop ship, "Nestor." He had begun his training at Camp Lewis near Tacoma, Washington and completed his military training at Camp Upton in New York in July of 1918. He had awaited debarkation to England at Camp Mills on Long Island, NY.

By September Frank was serving with the 308th in France. Before he knew it he was thrown into combat when the Meuse Argonne Offensive commenced in late September. Eventually as history and myth circled around and around, Frank would become a surviving member of what is referred to as 'The Lost Battalion.'

From the original 554 men that entered into the Argonne on October 2nd under the command of Major Whittlesey, 197 were killed. 150 were wounded and or taken prisoner by the Germans. 194 men walked out of 'The Pocket' after a grueling week of hell on October 8th, 1918.

As a runner, Frank braved many a day of machine gun and sniper fire, artillery shelling and mustard gassings. A telling quote stated by a fellow soldier, Pvt. Lee 'Buck' McCollum from aboard the ship that was taking him home in 1919 to New York. It offers his feelings and very likely the thoughts of most of the survivors of the Lost Battalion.

"Laughingly we had first boarded these boats, youth bound for France, youth looking for adventure, soldiers on parade. Now less than a year later we were returning home no longer laughing, light-hearted boys in our teens and early twenties, but men old beyond our years.

Each of us was bringing home an uninvited guest, a guest that would live with us through the rest of our days, who would sit with us at our tables and would wake us from our earned night's rest, to force us to walk step by step with him, over and over again, across the battlefields of France."

Over the years Frank has been referenced in various books and newspaper articles published throughout the states on the subject of the Lost Battalion. I include below some that I am fortunate to have.