FRANCIS NATHAN BANGS, JR., of th e Form of 1940, 1st Lt., A.U.S., died in the service of his country in Belgium on December 18, 1944;.
Having enlisted in the Army on his graduation from S.P.S. in 194.0, Frank Bangs specialized in radio and communications, was commissioned after Officers' Candidate School at Fort Knox, went overseas in August, 1943, and was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in England , where he completed his training for DDay.
Across France and in Belgium, he served in the Third Armored Division, as Communications Officer on his Battalion Staff. After his death, December 18, 1944, his Commanding Officer wrote :
"Many have been the times during the recent long winter evenings when we would gather in some room and argue late over some subjects far away from us: postwar plans, China, Russia, etc. Few could match his mental alertnes or his wide variety of interests."
Four years before, when it was the German armies that were over-running Belgium and France, Bangs, eighteen years old, and a Sixth Former at S.P.S., was already mentally alert and already had a wide variety of interests. He was a supervisor in a Fourth Form house, an officer and a prime mover in the Rifle Club, the Radio Club and the Dramatic Club: he took part in the Cadmean-cordian joint debate and in May, 1940, while many of his countrymen still cherished the false hope of an ignoble peace, he wrote in the Horae:
" In the early months of the war, we could justifiably maintain that the traditional preponderance of power lay with the Allies, and therefore,logically, our intervention was not needed. Tradition has given way to the might of misapplied science. The Danish and Norwegian invasions have been but lately concluded : at this moment, 'total war' is raging in Belgium and Holland, too soon, possibly in all France itself .. .. The question now is: must we try to tip the scales of victory, or are we prepared to risk facing the future alone? .. . Let us consider the facts calmly and openly .. . . I have made no mention of suffering humanity, of ruined civilization and burning cities, nor of our great moral responsibility. . . . I feel we should intervene at once before it is too late .. . ammunition, tanks, trucks and planes should he sent to the limit of our ability, I believe, and, if it is vital to ensure our own protection, men as well."
The most significant thing about Bangs' intelligent argument was the emotion that underlay it. At the end of a dispassionate refutation of the claim that it would be expedient for America to leave the victims of aggression to their fate, he can no longer wholly conceal his pity and his indignation, pity for the oppressed, indignation that there should be any argument at all. Clearly, before the fall of France he already knew that America should make war. Equall y clearly, he himself was already prepared to fight on foreign soil , not for his country's
protection only, but for its honor, which for him resided in response to obligation entailed by wealth and power. If this be idealism, we had better make the most of it. It has carried us thus far through the grea test crisis of our history, and in the years to come, our nation, bereaved of such men as Bangs, wi ll be upheld in the measure that it perceives and in their spirit is able to use the mmnentous opportunity they have achieved.
Frank Bangs was engaged to be married to Miss Caroline B. Joyes of Louisville, Kentucky. Surviving are his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Francis N. Bangs, and his sister Catherine T. Bangs, a Nurses Aid. His brother, Whitney Waldo Bangs, '43, Pfc., A.U.S., wounded in November, awarded the Purple Heart, and in February, reported missing since January 21, 1945, died a prisoner of war inGermany, March 5, 1945. Fank Bangs was a grandson of W. P. Clement, '69.