Veterans Shares Details of Four Decades of Military Service at Bolingbrook School

Military veteran Mort Franklin talks with students at Pioneer Elementary School Monday. Submitted by Valley View School District:

A veteran with over 40 years of military service delighted 5th grade students at Pioneer Elementary School Monday with stories of his career in the merchant marines, Army and Navy.

Chief Mort Franklin, the great uncle of a Pioneer student, told of early sailing adventures on month-long trips as a 15-year-old mate aboard a ship bound for Russia filled with ammunition to help the Russians “fight off the Germans” in World War II.

“I was panicking and I had a death grip on the rail because I felt if I hung onto the rail, I would survive,” he recalled after a German U-boat put two torpedoes into his ship. “But another seaman took a club in his hand, hit my hands and threw me overboard to save me.”

Chief Franklin spent three days in a rubber life raft without food or water and fending off sharks before he and several other crew members were rescued.

After the rescue, he enlisted in the Army, transferred to the Navy after World War II and then served in the National Guard. He is also a former Chicago police officer and was on duty during the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

His appearance at Hermansen was part of ceremonies marking Veteran’s Day.