One Veteran's Story

It is always touching when customers bring in pieces of their history. We have framed all kinds of things, from hole-in-one golf balls to letters from Katharine Hepburn. Each project is full of interesting stories and memories, but there is something different about the history of a veteran. It is very humbling and inspires a lot of gratitude.

Often it is the children of the veteran coming in with medals, badges, maps and photos. There is an emotional charge … pride, love, but mostly a clear drive to honor the service of their loved one.

This fall we had the honor of working on a special project with Jerry Bowen. He came into the shop with long time customer, Debra Curtin and he carried some very important things. We worked together on the design trying to ensure the sense of honor it deserved.

I asked Jerry if he would like to share the story of his father. He very generously did:

Shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941, 21 year old Jerome "Frank" Bowen of Chelsea, MA attempted to enlist in the United States Army. He was told he did not meet the physical standards due to his punctured eardrum. However, as World War II raged on in Europe & the Pacific, and the U.S. prepared to take a more active role, physical standards became less strict and Frank Bowen was drafted into the US Army in October 1942.

Frank was assigned to the Army's 10th Armored Division and trained in Georgia, where he became a tank commander and earned the rank of Staff Sergeant. While home on leave in June 1943 Sgt. Bowen married his sweetheart, Jeanette, who was also from Chelsea. After further training in Tennessee Sgt. Bowen and the 10th Armored Division sailed to the French port of Cherbourge in September 1944, where the Division became part of General George Patton's Third Army. Frank Bowen and his comrades would subsequently become involved in fierce combat against German forces in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Bavaria, Austria and Germany. 
       
In December 1944, during Europe's worst winter in 40 years, the German army launched a massive all-out counterattack in an effort to eventually capture the harbor of Antwerp. The attack was stalled around the Belgian town of Bastogne in the Ardennes Forest, by U.S. Army forces who were surrounded and faced annihilation. Sgt. Bowen's 10th Armored Division was rushed to those front lines and played a major role in saving the embattled units in what would become known as The Battle of the Bulge.
 
Because Sgt. Bowen was a tank commander, he often sat up in the top turret with his shoulders & head exposed, in order to direct the movements of his and other tanks. Late in the winter of 1945 he was in such an exposed position, leading his tank through a German forest when a German shell struck a glancing blow to the tank. Shrapnel from the explosion caught Sgt. Bowen full in his face and tore much of it away. At first the tank crew thought Frank had been killed instantly, but one of his comrades detected a slight pulse on his sergeant's body. Extraordinary efforts were made to keep Sgt. Bowen alive and he was transported to a medical area behind the front lines, in critical condition & nearly blind. Days later a hospital ship carried Frank to England, and another ship would eventually return him to the U.S. with other wounded soldiers. 

Sgt. Bowen would spend the next 5 years at the U.S. Army's Valley Forge Hospital in Pennsylvania, undergoing a tracheostomy and more than 50 painful facial reconstruction, skin graft, and plastic surgeries. His primary surgeons, Dr. Joseph Murray & Dr. Bradford Cannon, were pioneers in their field, and their techniques & discoveries were later used in treating wounded soldiers from the Korean Conflict, Vietnam War, and beyond. Later in his career, Dr. Murray was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Frank Bowen returned home to his wife, friends & family in Chelsea in 1950. He was physically disfigured and had minimum eyesight, but he was mentally determined to lead as full and productive life as possible. He eventually went to work for the General Services Administration in the U.S. Post Office in Boston, from which he retired in the 1980's. During that time he & his wife raised a daughter & son, making sure they never wanted for anything, and seeing that they both received a college education. Frank & his wife Jeanette shared 47 years of marriage until she passed in 1990. In 2004 Frank passed away at the age of 83.  He never complained or succumbed to self-pity.  To this day Jerome "Frank" Bowen remains a hero to all who knew him.