Franklin F. "Fooch"Peterson (born 1921)

1939 LHS football squad	1940 LHS football squad

This January 28, 1943, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 5, column 1:

A daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Peterson, last Wednesday, Jan. 20th.

The following May 6, 1943, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 2:

Pvt. Franklin Peterson is home from Camp Blanding, Fla., visiting his wife and parents, Mrs. and Mrs. Charles Peterson.

This May 4, 1944, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 1:

Word received by his wife and his parents, the Charles Petersons, informs them that Franklin Peterson, serving with his outfit overseas, has received a promotion and is now a Technical Corporal.

This Lowell Tribune article was found in the January 18, 1945, issue (page 1, column 5):

LOWELL BOY WOUNDED XMAS DAY IN BELGIUM

T/Cpl. Franklin Peterson "Slightly Wounded" In Action Against Germans, Dec. 25

Another Lowell boy, T/Cpl. Franklin "Fooch" Peterson, Lowell, has been reported a casualty in fighting against the Germans in Belgium on Christmas day. His wife, the former Dorothy Keithley, who with their little daughter, reside in Lowell with her father, George Keithley, received the telegram from the War Department last Tuesday stating that her husband had been slightly wounded. As this was the first news she had received in several weeks she had no knowledge of his hospitalization and is anxiously awaiting a further report on his condition.

"Fooch," a graduate of Lowell high school with the class of 1942, was a star guard for two years on L.H.S. football teams. He enlisted in the service two years ago last November, and has been overseas ten months, spending seven months of that time in action in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He has been serving as a scout car driver with a reconnaissance group.

Charles Peterson

This January 25, 1945, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 3, columns 2- 5:

Local Boy Member of Famed Old Hickory Division.

The following write-up, passed for publication by the Chief Press Censor of the European war theatre, was received last week by Mrs. Franklin Peterson, the former Shirley Keithley, from her husband, T/Cpl. Franklin Peterson, who, until he was wounded recently, was a member of the famed Old Hickory Division:

For some time I have been hoping I could tell you folks back home about this outfit of ours and the swell record it has made in World War II from the time it hit the Normandy beach and began fighting on June 15. Censorship has kept our Old Hickory Division's engagements pretty much "under wraps," but we have made a record we'll stack up against any other division's and the Public Relations staff has made it easier for us to get the information back to you by summarizing the highlights of the 30th's great campaigns and getting this material cleared through the press censorship.

When the 30th Infantry Division troops charged through the greatest concentration of artillery and mortar fire they had met in the Western campaign to storm the bunkers of the German Siegfried Line and establish a bridgehead in the fatherland, they reached an objective for which, in three months of bitter fighting they had been paving the way since the battle near the beaches.

Smashing the Siegfried Line in the sector north of Aachen where it was heavily manned and then aiding in closing the gap that forced Aachen's fall constituted one of the toughest jobs assigned any division in the Battle of Europe.

But the 30th Infantry Division received its baptism of fire on a tough assignment June 15 and its progress to the German frontier was marked by battles that have been vital in the master strategy of the war.

The all-important breakthrough south of pulverized St. Lo on July 25, a date already historically significant, was spearheaded by the Old Hickorymen. A real fighting team, the troops of the 30th had qualified for that assignment--which battered open a passage through the hedgerow country allowing American armor to fan out over France--by a series of successful offensives against the Germans. At the outset the 30th drove the Germans back across the Vire River. Then in a spectacular attack the Old Hickorymen forced a crossing of the Vire and opened the drive on St. Lo. These battles in the hedgerow sector were slugging matches, every foot of advance being skillfully and stubbornly contested and they were complicated by rough and frequent counterattacks.

However, some of the heaviest fighting remained to be accomplished by the 30th after it had been given the "green light" to the armored drive. That occurred in the Mortain-St. Barthelmy sector when the 30th took over the area of the First Division at a time when four German panzer divisions struck in the most powerful blitz effort of the campaign, to drive through and separate the American 1st and 3rd armies.

It was there that infantry riflemen with bazookas, artillery and tank destroyers, cooks and messengers, with the help of U.S. planes and RAF rocket-firing Typhoons finally threw back the German tanks in a battle that see-sawed for three days before the Germans concluded they were no match for one American division. In this same battle, the great defensive at Mortain-St. Barthelmy, a battalion was isolated on a hill near Mortain, cut off without food, ammunition and medical supples for five and a half days, and despite the fact the harassed infantry men were under constant enemy observation, artillery and mortar fire, they refused repeated demands to surrender.

The 30th Division was commended for its heroic stand; for the courage and skill of its men who refused to let overwhelming odds discourage them in the battle against tanks at St. Barthelmy and for the loyalty and stamina of the members of the "lost battalion" who defied surrender demands, their spokesmen telling the German officer:

"Go to hell! We wouldn't surrender if out last round of ammunition was fired and out last bayonet broken off in a Jerry belly!"

This battle of the 30th against the best of the German armor started on the night of August 7-8 and a week later the Old Hickorymen were forcing the retreat of the Germans.

The 30th troop drove rapidly against the Germans to free Evroux and Louviers, then crossed the Seine at Mantes Gassicourt to enlarge the bridgehead there and prepare for the next breakthrough, this time into Belgium.

This April 26, 1945, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 4, column 1:

The 125th General Hospital, England -- Having recovered at this U.S. army hospital from shrapnel wounds received near Malmedy, Belgium, on Dec. 25, 1944, Private Franklin F. Peterson, 23, of Lowell, has been released for return to duty. While at this hospital, he received expert medical care, followed by a period of convalescence.

Member of a reconnaissance unit, he entered the army on November 11, 1942.

An October 4, 1945, Lowell Tribune article (page 5, column 4) mentioned that Pfc. Franklin Peterson, serving with the U.S. forces in Germany, was the only one absent from the first get-together the George Keithley family held in four years.

This December 20, 1945, Lowell Tribune article was found on page 2, column 6:

Franklin Peterson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Peterson, discharged from sevice this week, arrived home yesterday from Camp Atterbury. Franklin, who saw active service in Europe, has recovered from a battle wound received last Christmas day. He will live here with his wife and daughter.

The following newspaper article, hand-identified as being from the Feb. 24, 1955, Tribune, was found in a scrapbook owned by Town Historian Richard Schmal:

Franklin Peterson Graduates from Engineering Course

Franklin was awarded a degree in chemical engineering, having completed a four-year course.

Franklin is a Purple Heart veteran of World War II, having been wounded twice in the Battle of the Bulge. He is married and has four sons and a daughter. His eldest son he named Jimmy, namesake of Jimmy Mitchell of Ohio, whose deed of bravery during the famed battle with the German's saved Franklin's life.

Last updated on January 18, 2012.

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Franklin F. “Fooch”Peterson (born 1921)