Logo

Frank Kresen POST 24

Logo
legion-logo-home.jpg

POST HISTORY

POST 24 was chartered in August of 1919.

Our Namesake, Frank Kresen

FrankKressen.jpg

     Corporal Frank Augutus Kresen, Battery F, 120th Field Artillery - the only man from Lake Geneva killed in the great World War.

     Corporal Kresen was born in Germany Oct. 18,1883 and accompanied his parents to Lake Geneva when he was 6 months old. He was sworn in as a member of Troop F, 1st

Wisconsin Cavalry on April 3. 1917, the day after war was declared and entrained for Camp Douglas with the unit on July 28. Here he soon proved himself an able industrious

and efficient non-commissioned officer and soldier. Leaving there he accompanied Troop F to Camp McArthur, Waco Texas on September 11, and on the troop becoming Battery F,

120th F.A. he was assigned to duty as corporal in charge of the battery machine guns.

 

    Arriving at Le Havre, France on March 28,1918, he spent practically the rest of the war at Camp Coequidan, Morihan and at the American Artillery school at Saumur.      At the latter place, on Nov. 19, he volunteered to take charge of a gun that had been acting badly. The ammunition was also known to be defective.    A high explosive shell exploded in the breech killing Corporal Kresen and Pvt. Peter Schmidt of Merrill. Pvt. Radke  of Merrill was badly wounded. Pvt. Harold Rice of Genoa Junction was acting as No. 4 man on the gun crew and was standing between the two killed but was uninjured.