Frank was drafted on his 21st birthday in 1942 and served in the U.S. Army 28th Infantry Divisions 110th Regimental Combat Team as first gunner of a light artillery crew during the fourth wave of the Normandy landings in July of 1944, just a few weeks after D-Day. From Normandy, the 28th Division engaged in difficult hedgerow to hedgerow fighting as they pushed across western France to join in the liberation of Paris and moved on the day following the liberation parade to fight some of the most important battles of World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge the last major German offensive campaign on the Western front and the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by American troops in the war. The fury of the 28th divisions assaults led the German Army to bestow its soldiers with the title Bloody Bucket Division. During the Battle of the Bulge, Frank was captured and spent from December 1944 to April 1945 as a prisoner of war in German prison camp Stalag IV B. He was honorably discharged in October of 1945. Frank revisited the battlefields of Normandy in 2018, and in 2019 was recognized by France as a Knight in the National Order of the French Legion of Honor, the highest award granted to foreign nationals for military service on French soil, for his actions during the Invasion of Normandy in liberating France. Frank is 98, and is the father of Frank Martells wife Donna.
