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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Frank Knox |
| Address |
Chicago, Illinois , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
January 01, 1874
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| Died | April 28, 1944
(70 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Chronicler
Jul 24, 2022 01:16pm |
| Tags |
Army - Freemason - Congregationalist -
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| Info | William Franklin "Frank" Knox was the Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt during most of World War II. He was also the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1936.
William Franklin Knox was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Alma College, in Michigan, where he was a founding member of the Zeta Sigma Fraternity, and served in Cuba with the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. Following that conflict, Knox became a newspaper reporter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the beginning of a career that grew to include the ownership of several papers.
He changed his first name to Frank around 1900. In 1912 as founding editor of New Hampshire's Manchester Leader, forerunner to the New Hampshire Union Leader, he supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive ticket. During World War I, Knox was an advocate of preparedness and United States participation. He served as an artillery officer in France after America entered the hostilities.
In 1930, Frank Knox became publisher and part owner of the Chicago Daily News. An active Republican, he was that party's nominee for vice president in the 1936 election, under Alf Landon. (Landon, Knox, and Herbert Hoover were the only supporters of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 to be later named to a Republican ticket.) Landon and Knox lost by a landslide, winning just Maine and Vermont. Knox was an internationalist and was a vocal opponent of Hitler in the mid-1930s. In early 1940 he supported FDR's proposed aid to Britain, and later that year FDR appointed him Secretary of the Navy as part of a bi-partisan effort in his foreign and defense policies following the defeat of France.
As Secretary, Frank Knox followed Roosevelt's directive to expand the US Navy into a force capable of fighting in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Chief of Naval Operations Ernest J. King had full control of naval operations during the war, and often kept Knox in the dark about plans. Knox was able to block King's efforts to control procurement of war supplies, but on the whole the civilian side of naval affairs was run by Assistant Secretary James Forrestal, who was closer to Roosevelt than Knox. Knox was shocked when he heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the following day he flew to Hawaii personally to inspect the damage and initiate plans for how to move forward. Through the following 2.5 years, Knox visited many theatres of the war to make sure that naval officers were receiving what they needed to prosecute the war, clocking more hours in travel than any other cabinet member. Following a brief series of heart attacks, Secretary Knox died in Washington, D.C. on April 28, 1944.
USS Frank Knox is named in his honor. Following his death, his wife, Annie Reid Knox, established the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowships, which enable students from various countries in the Commonwealth to attend Harvard University for graduate study.
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