13 Facts About Frank Merrill

Frank Dow Merrill was a United States Army general and is best remembered for his command of Merrill's Marauders, officially the 5307th Composite Unit, in the Burma Campaign of World War II.

Frank Merrill enlisted in the US Army in 1922 and earned the rank of staff sergeant in Company A, 11th Engineers.

Frank Merrill received an appointment to West Point in 1925 and he graduated in 1929.

In 1938, Frank Merrill became the Military Attache in Tokyo where he studied the Japanese language.

Frank Merrill joined General Douglas MacArthur's staff in the Philippines in 1941 as a military intelligence officer.

Frank Merrill was on a mission in Rangoon, Burma, at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack and remained in Burma after the Japanese invasion.

In November 1943, Colonel Frank Merrill was promoted to brigadier general only a month before his fortieth birthday, making him one of the youngest American generals since the Civil War.

Frank Merrill was promoted to major general in September 1944 at the age of 40.

In 1943, General Frank Merrill was appointed to command a new volunteer US Army special forces unit patterned after the Long Range Jungle Penetration groups formed by the British to harass Japanese forces in Burma.

General Frank Merrill oversaw the training and deployment of the three battalions of the 5307th into Burma in February 1944.

Frank Merrill retired from the Army in his permanent rank of colonel on 30 June 1948, and was promoted to brigadier general on the retired list the next day.

In 1992, General Frank Merrill was inducted into the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame[1] as a member of its inaugural class of inductees.

Frank Merrill was played by Jeff Chandler in the 1962 film Frank Merrill's Marauders.