Frank DeVita

Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY

Branch of Service: Navy

Unit: USS Samuel Chase

Theater of Operation: European

Battle: Normandy

Highest Rank: Gunners Mate 3rd Class

Honored By: The Eisenhower Foundation

Frank DeVita was born in Brooklyn, New York. When DeVita turned 18, he volunteered to serve in World War II and joined the US Coast Guard “as it was the branch that would send him out to defend his country the fastest,” according to his obituary. He served as a Gunner’s Mate Third Class on the USS Samuel Chase (APA-26), a Coast Guard manned US Navy attack transport. He served in that role for almost three years in both the European Theater and the Asiatic-Pacific Theater and in the Occupation and China Service in the Far East following World War II.

During both the Normandy and Provence campaigns of the Liberation of France, DeVita crewed a Higgins landing craft (LCVP) on repetitive landings with the task of lowering the boat’s ramp. On the June 6, 1944, D-Day Invasion, his Higgins boat – a part of the first wave – made 15 trips onto Omaha beach in Normandy, France, ferrying solders to the fight and returning with wounded or dead.

Following the 70th anniversary of D-day, DeVita became passionate about sharing his story “so that the men in the cemetery would never be forgotten” and future generations would know the lengths to which others sacrificed for their country, according to his obituary.

Courtesy of patch.com and the American Veterans Center.