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Unit:
321st Ordnance Battalion
Date of Birth:
December 24, 2023
Hometown:
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Date of Death:
August 6, 1944
Place of Death:
Le Ham, France
Cemetery:
Frank James Bennino was born on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1923, in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, to Mary and Nunzio Bennino. He had a close bond to his older brother, Horace, and his two younger sisters, Alice and Edith. He was the more reserved sibling in the family, but his sister remembered him as thoughtful and caring. His home was lively and loving with ten people, including his grandmother, living there.
Growing up in his musically-oriented family, Frank Bennino showed a love for singing and dancing. He also enjoyed sports and in the winter time he ice skated on the neighborhood pond.
After graduating from Wethersfield High School in 1941, he worked at the Hartford Machine Screw Company as a cargo checker for exported items.
On March 2, 1943, Bennino was drafted into the U.S. Army. He followed his brother, drafted four months earlier. He was proud to serve his country just like his own father, an immigrant from Italy, who had served America in World War I.
Bennino served as a technician in the ordnance department. But during the war he became close friends with a chaplain from Chicago named Frannie who eventually asked Frank to become his driver.
Right before the Normandy invasion Frank Bennino met with his brother Horace one more time before they sailed to Normandy with different units.
On August 6, 1944, Bennino was driving the chaplain in Le Ham, France, when his jeep collided with a U.S. tank. Though the chaplain survived, Bennino was killed instantly, becoming the second Rocky Hill boy to lose his life in World War II. He never learned that the first fallen soldier from Rocky Hill, killed only six weeks earlier, was his own brother, Horace.
Frank’s mother never quite recovered from the loss of both her sons. Nearly 70 years later, Frank’s sister, Edith, still cried when she recalled her brothers and wondered what her family would be like if her brothers survived. Just like his sister, I wondered a lot during this project about the many what-if’s.
Both Frank and Horace Bennino are buried at Normandy American Cemetery in France.
Bennino Family Papers. 1941-1944. Courtesy of Edith Bennino Fontana.
“Community Loses Second Resident In World War II.” The Hartford Courant, August 21, 1944. Newspapers.com (367834367).
Connecticut. Hartford County. 1940 U.S. Federal Census. ancestry.com.
Fontana, Edith Bennino. Personal interview with author. May 13, 2012.
Frank J. Bennino. Headstone and Interment Records for U.S. Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942-1949. ancestry.com.
Frank J. Bennino, Individual Deceased Personnel File, Department of the Army.
Frank J. Bennino. Westfield High School Yearbook. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999. ancestry.com.
Frank J. Bennino. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946. ancestry.com.
Frank J. Bennino. WWII Draft Cards, Young Men, 1940-1947. ancestry.com.
Frank J. Bennino. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954. ancestry.com.
Ambrose, Stephen. Band of Brothers. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1992.
“Frank J. Bennino.” American Battle Monuments Commission. Accessed May 18, 2020. www.abmc.gov/decedent-search/bennino%3Dfrank.
Kershaw, Alex. The Bedford Boys. Bedford: Da Capo Press, 2003.
Eisenhower, Dwight. Crusade in Europe. Baltimore: Doubleday, 1948.
Terkel, Studs. “The Good War.” New York: The New Press, 1984.
The American Battle Monuments Commission operates and maintains 26 cemeteries and 31 federal memorials, monuments and commemorative plaques in 17 countries throughout the world, including the United States.
Since March 4, 1923, the ABMC’s sacred mission remains to honor the service, achievements, and sacrifice of more than 200,000 U.S. service members buried and memorialized at our sites.
