Background
Frank Dow Merrill was born on December 4, 1903, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. He was the son of Charles William Merrill, a carriage trimmer, and Katheryn Donovan Merrill.
Frank Dow Merrill was born on December 4, 1903, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. He was the son of Charles William Merrill, a carriage trimmer, and Katheryn Donovan Merrill.
Merrill graduated from public high school at Amesbury, Massachusetts, in 1921. Although he was rejected by the United States Military Academy because of astigmatism, he persisted in his desire for a military and engineering career by enlisting in the regular army in 1922. He rose to staff sergeant in the Eleventh Engineers and continued to apply for admission to the academy. In 1925, after a total of five rejections, he finally entered West Point, from which he graduated in 1929. In 1931-1932 Merrill completed Ordnance School Course 1 at Watertown Arsenal, Massachusetts, and earned the B. S. in military engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in June 1932. He attended the 1934-1935 term at the cavalry school, also at Fort Riley, and remained as an instructor. In 1938, Merrill became a language student.
As a second lieutenant, Merrill served with the Third Cavalry at Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, and the Second Armored Car Squadron at Fort Eustis, Virginia. For the next two years, he served with the Thirteenth Cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas, the Civilian Conservation Corps at Brownbranch, Missouri, and again with the Thirteenth Cavalry as a regimental motor officer. He had been promoted to the first lieutenant on November 1, 1934. In 1938, Merrill became an assistant military attaché at the United States embassy in Tokyo, and in June 1939 was promoted to captain. Made a major (temporary) in October 1941, he left Japan the following month for Manila, to serve as an intelligence officer with General Douglas MacArthur. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, he was in Rangoon, and he remained in Burma as a liaison officer with the British army. Unhappy with the British defense of Burma, he was glad to join the staff of the commander of the new United States China-Burma-India Theater, Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell. When Burma fell, Merrill accompanied Stilwell on the general's walk out of the country and into India although a heart condition caused Merrill to collapse, and he had to be carried the final miles on a litter. On May 25, 1942, he officially became Stilwell's operations officer; that day he was promoted to lieutenant colonel (temporary). He became colonel (temporary) on January 8, 1943. With Stilwell, Merrill shared the frustrations of the efforts to influence Chiang Kai-shek to reform his army and to persuade the British to launch an attack into Burma to reopen a land route to China. In December 1943 Stilwell moved to resolve the impasse by taking personal command of a thrust by two United States-trained Chinese divisions from Ledo, India. They moved toward Myitkyina, an enemy base and airstrip at the terminus of rail transport and Irrawaddy River navigation in north Burma. To spearhead this attack, Stilwell secured the one regiment of American combat troops in the theater and named Merrill its commander. Because from November 8, 1943, Merrill was a brigadier general (temporary), the troops were called not merely a regiment but the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional). They are better known by their code name, Galahad, or as Merrill's Marauders.
The unit enveloped the Japanese defenses of the Kamaing Road by cutting the route behind the enemy at Walawbum (February 25 - March 7, 1944) and at Shaduzup and Inkangahtawng (March 12-28). These maneuvers required marches of extreme difficulty in mountainous terrain and tropical climate. Stilwell outlined only general missions, and Merrill planned the operational details. He performed with a high degree of competence and shared his men's risks and hardships until a coronary thrombosis forced him to yield his command on March 29 and to be evacuated. While Merrill was recovering, two of his battalions were hit hard by the enemy, malnutrition, and exhaustion in a siege at Nhpum Ga (March 28 - April 9). When he returned, Galahad had shrunk to 1, 400 of its original 2, 750 men; nevertheless, Stilwell made it the nucleus of a task force under Merrill's command for the final drive to Myitkyina. The force took the Myitkyina airstrip on May 17. Merrill went to the front two days later but had to be evacuated almost immediately because of another heart attack. The Marauders, who, supplied by air drop, had marched 500 miles in four months, fought five major and thirty minor engagements, and eventually suffered 80 percent casualties 66 percent from the disease. They crumbled as an effective force during the subsequent fight for the town of Myitkyina; Stilwell had overextended his most reliable unit. Promoted to major general (temporary) on September 5, 1944, Merrill held staff positions in Asia from August 1944 to July 1945, when he became chief of staff of Stilwell's Tenth Army on Okinawa. There he planned the invasion of Japan. From January 1946 to February 1947, he was chief of staff of the Sixth Army at San Francisco. He then became chief of staff of the Military Advisory Group in the Philippines, where he suffered another coronary thrombosis in October 1947. He retired on June 30, 1948. Merrill's family had spent the war years in New Hampshire. After Merrill settled at Concord, New Hampshire, in August 1949 he was appointed state commissioner of public works and highways. He completed the New Hampshire Turnpike and largely conceived the state's part of what became the interstate highway system. In December 1955 he was elected president of the American Association of Highway Officials, but he died at Fernandina Beach, Florida, almost immediately afterward.
Frank Merrill is best remembered for his command of Merrill's Marauders, officially the 5307th Composite Unit (provisional), in the Burma Campaign of World War II. In 1992, General Merrill was inducted into the U. S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame as a member of its inaugural class of inductees. The Everett Turnpike bridge over New Hampshire's Souhegan River was a favorite of Merrill's, and is dedicated to Merrill's Marauders. Camp Frank D. Merrill, near Dahlonega, Georgia, is home to the three-week mountain training phase of the United States Army Ranger School. The U. S. Army retroactively awarded members of Merrill's Marauders the U. S. Army Ranger Tab.
On November 3, 1930, Merrill married Lucy Kelsall Wright; they had two sons.
