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1st Lt Francis N. Bangs Jr. enlisted in New York City, New York on 27 January 1941.
Having enlisted in the Army on his graduation from St. Paul's in 1940, Frank Bangs specialized in radio and communications, was commissioned after Officers' Candidate School at Fort Knox, went overseas in August, 1943, and was promoted First Lieutenant in England, where he completed his training for D-Day. Across France and in Belgium, he served in the 3rd Armored Division, as Communications Officer on his Battalion Staff. He died in the service of his country, in Belgium, December 18, 1944. After his death, his Commanding Officer wrote: "Many have been the times during the recent long winter evenings when we would gather in some room and argue late over some subject far away from us: postwar plans, China, Russia etc. Few could match his mental alertness or his wide variety of interests." Four years before, when it was the German armies that were over-running Belgium and France, Bangs, eighteen years old, was a Sixth Former at the School. He was a supervisor in a Fourth Form house, an officer of the Rifle Club, the Radio Club and the Dramatic Club; he took part in the Cadmean-Concordian joint debate and in May, 1940, while many of his countrymen still cherished the false hope of peace, he wrote in the Horae: "In the early months of the war, we could justifiably maintain that the traditional preponderance of power lay with the Allies, and therefore, logically, our intervention was not needed. Tradition has given way to the might of misapplied science. The Danish and Norwegian invasions have been but lately concluded: at this moment, 'total war' is raging in Belgium and Holland, - too soon, possibly in all France itself. . . . The question now is: Must we try to tip the scales of victory, or are we prepared to risk facing the future alone? . . . Let us consider the facts calmly and openly. . . . I have made no mention of suffering humanity, of ruined civilization and burning cities, nor of our great moral responsibility. . . . I feel we should intervene at once before it is too late . . . ammunition, tanks, trucks and planes should be sent to the limit of our ability, I believe, and, if it is vital to ensure our own protection, men as well." The most significant thing about Bang's intelligent argument was the emotion that underlay it. At the end of a dispassionate refutation of the claim that it would be expedient for America to leave the victims of aggression to their fate, he can no longer wholly conceal his pity and his indignation, pity for the oppressed, indignation that there should be any argument at all. Clearly, before the fall of France he aready knew that America should make war. Equally clearly, he himself was already prepared to fight on foreign soil, not for his country's protection only, but for its honor, which for him resided in response to obligation entailed by wealth and power.
Frank Bangs was the only brother of Whitney Waldo Bangs, '43, who died as a prisoner of war in Germany, March 5, 1945. He is buried next to him at Plot H, Row 15, Grave 45.
First buried at Block OO, Row 5, Grave 87.