Career
At his alma mater University of Iowa, Cuhel was a three-year letterman, playing football in addition to track. He was elected to the U of I Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. His success in the Olympics was such that upon graduation he took up work as a business envoy for a number of Dutch firms doing business in America.
Eventually this business sent him to Java in Indonesia, which is where he found himself at the start of World World War World War II As the islands became a more important strategic theater for World World War II operations, Cuhel was hired by Mutual Broadcasting Systems to serve as a war correspondent, issuing radio reports of any action or newsworthy items.
When Java fell to the Japanese, Cuhel and other correspondents made a daring last minute escape. Cuhel was killed in the crash of the ill-fated Boeing 314 called Yankee Clipper into the Tagus River on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal on February 22, 1943 (the same flight which badly injured Jane Froman and served as the climax to her biopic With A Song In My Heart).
That December, a freighter was christened the Frank J. Cuhel in his honor.