Frank D Merrill

Frank Dow Merrill was born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on 4 December 1903, and grew up in Amesbury. He enlisted in 1922 and rose to staff sergeant before entering West Point, where he graduated in 1929. He studied engineering at MIT, and as military attache in Tokyo learned Japanese.

He was in Rangoon on a mission when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and served as operations officer to General Stilwell in the retreat from Burma. In 1943 he was given command of the 5307th Composite Unit, the only American ground combat unit in the China-Burma-India theater, known as Merrill's Marauders. Through the first half of 1944 the Marauders marched and fought deep behind Japanese lines, and their work led to the fall of Myitkyina.

After the war he served in the Philippines and with Sixth Army, and retired in 1948. He became Commissioner of Highways for New Hampshire. He died of a heart attack in Fernandina Beach, Florida, on 11 December 1955, days after being elected president of the national association of state highway officials. He lies in the West Point Cemetery. Camp Frank D. Merrill, the mountain phase of Ranger School at Dahlonega, Georgia, bears his name.