Frank Battles Hedges

PFC in 3133rd Signal Service Co

ASN#11131688

Born 1925 in VT, Died 1983

County of residence at enlistment: Middlesex County, MA

Other residence(s): Lisbon, ME; Watertown, MA; Lexington, MA; Salem, MA; Marblehead, MA; Georgetown, MA; Concord, MA; North Brunswick, NJ

United States Army, European Theatre of Operations

Occupation before the war: student

College education after the war: Harvard; Harvard Business School

Notes: T/5 in 1944 Christmas Program; served in Korean War 1950-51 and terminal rank was SFC (SGT 1st Class)

Source: 3133rd Program, 15 Sep 1944; 3133rd roster from 10th Mountain Division Museum at Fort Drum; AES 1944 Christmas Dinner Program; photo courtesy Ancestry® and Harvard University

Frank Hedges was born on October 7, 1925 in Bennington, VT although his parents were residents of Springfield, MA. He was the oldest of two children; his brother was born the following year. His father was a salesman for a Springfield company which manufactured gas pumps and tanks. Sometime in 1930, his father headed to Montana to work the western territory for his company. His wife and children were living in Lisbon, ME in 1930 but, at some point, she headed west to be with her husband, leaving her two sons with their grandmother in Lisbon Falls. Less than a year after Frank’s father moved to Montana, he died there of a liver abscess.

Frank’s mother remarried before 1935; her second husband was named William Phillips and the family settled in Watertown, MA and later in Lexington and Marblehead, MA. They would have a child in 1937; Frank’s youngest brother. Bill Phillips was a salesman for a heating company and appears to have had a close relationship with Frank, since they would later conduct a number of business ventures together.

Frank was a senior at Lexington High School when he enlisted in the Army Reserves on February 19, 1944. His high school yearbook says of him: “An authority on guns and literature, he is the most voracious reader in our class.” He appeared to be a promising candidate and was enrolled in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). (This was a program designed to meet the wartime demand for junior officers and soldiers with technical skills.)

By September he was part of the 3133 Signal Service Company with the rank of PFC, and was promoted to T/5 before Christmas.

He likely served in Italy with the 3133^rd, and was reassigned to another unit after the 3133^rd disbanded. An April 1946 newspaper article says he was a paratrooper/infantryman in Italy. We do know that a number of 3133^rd members stayed on in Italy with other units, since many had enlisted late in the war and still had to wrap up their military service obligations. Frank’s obituary says that he studied at the University of Florence; this may have been during his post-war time in Italy.

After returning home, he enrolled at Harvard, living in Salem MA with his younger brother for at least some of his time as a student. He graduated from Harvard in 1950, and, with his stepfather, bought Bishop’s Market in Georgetown, MA. Four months later he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War, serving for another year.

After he returned from his military service with the rank of SGT 1^st Class in the fall of 1951, he continued to run the market but also began studying at Harvard Business School in 1952. Throughout his two years there he was applying his classroom learning to the market; this included an eight-month analysis of the economic, geographic, residential, and industrial characteristics of his market area. A 1955 profile in the Boston Herald detailed his efforts at the market; the headline tells the story: “30-Year-Old Turns Sleuth, Builds Findings into Booming Supermarket in Georgetown.” The article goes on: “He’s bringing them in from cities as far away as Gloucester, 25 miles away, to do their shopping. . . . Others are coming from Newburyport, Haverhill, and Lawrence. Sixty percent of his trade is coming from outside Georgetown. How did he do it? Not by any of the ancient tricks of the trade. He did it by science.”

The science included such techniques as paying boys 50 cents an hour to check the licenses of cars parked outside markets of competitors in Haverhill, Danvers, and Newburyport. He noted that the competitors seemed vulnerable to“any strong effort centered on a combination meat, grocery, and liquor supermarket.” From town clerks he obtained birthrate figures and found out where people worked. He checked the ages of his competitors and found they averaged 53, and decided they were not going to start being aggressive. He noted that the area was growing and that the new residents appeared to be well-off; new school additions recently completed were already considered inadequate.

Frank found time to marry Ruth Arlene Ellis in June 1954, right after he received his MBA from Harvard. They would go on to have two children: Frank Jr. and Connie, and eventually settled in Concord, MA.

In 1959, Frank, along with a business partner, parlayed his grocery experience into the acquisition of the assets of The Rowse Company in Greenville, NH (just over the border from Massachusetts). Rowse was a maker of juices and vinegars; their products were sold throughout New England under a variety of chain store labels, and under their own Veryfine and Winter Hill labels (the latter a vestige of their founding neighborhood in Somerville, MA). Frank served as President.

In 1968, Frank founded Plastic Techniques in New Boston, NH, a manufacturer of safety-related products used in construction. Two years later, he became president of The Battles Company (named for his mother’s maiden name, his own middle name) in Carteret, NJ, and the family moved to North Brunswick NJ. He also served during this period as president of SP Industries in Edison, NJ.

Frank’s wife died in 1979, and he himself died on August 27, 1983 at the age of 57. He is buried at the Columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.