HILLSDALE—Eighty years ago, in November 1943, thousands of Hillsdale residents gathered for a jubilant patriotic celebration—the biggest the town had ever seen. A hero was coming home.
It was reason enough to celebrate that Col. Frank A. Hill, the son of Fred and Ruth Hill of 183 Washington Ave., had flown 166 combat missions over Europe and Africa, downed seven Axis planes, and returned stateside with nary a scratch. However, the 23-year-old pilot had also made national headlines, lauded as the first American flier to shoot down a German plane during the Dieppe Raid, Operation Jubilee, over northern France on August 19, 1942.
Francis Ackerman Hill was born in 1919, the fourth of nine children–eight boys and a girl—in the Hill household. He attended Westwood High School, where he was a bright student and a standout in football and track. Yet, Frank always had his eyes set on the skies: from a very young age his primary interest was aviation.
Since boyhood Frank had built model airplanes and marveled at the fighter planes shown in magazines. When he was about 15 he got his first ride in an airplane. Robert Saunders, of Westwood, owned a plane that he kept at the Teterboro airport. Hill met him there for a ride almost every Saturday. Teenage Frank and his friends took classes in aviation and built gliders that they flew at a small airfield on Cleveland Avenue in River Vale.
After graduating in 1937, Hill worked as a plumber’s helper before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps (the predecessor of the Air Force) in the summer of 1939. He was assigned to Chanute Field, Illinois, and was then sent to the Chicago School of Aeronautics for training.
From there he was off to Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas, for basic training and then to Kelley Field in Texas for advanced training in solo, formation, and pursuit leadership. He became a second lieutenant with the 40th Pursuit Squadron, the Red Devils, and was a flight leader.
While at San Antonio, Hill’s roommate had introduced him to his sister, Miss Linda Lempke, who was a nurse at the airport and the daughter of a Wisconsin farmer. They were married on Washington’s Birthday in 1941, marking the beginning of a union that would last for the next 70 years.
That September Hill was injured in a training exercise near Jackson, Mississippi. When his P39’s motor failed he crashed through an oak tree, tore through a picket fence, and finally came to an undignified stop inside a pigpen. Sustaining a broken vertebra in the crash, he spent several weeks in a plaster cast. On his release in November 1941, he and his wife came home to Hillsdale for the holidays. Over Thanksgiving dinner, the young airman thrilled his family with stories from his time in the service.
Dec. 7, 1941—on that infamous day Hill was still at home in Hillsdale, listening to the radio, when he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He itched to join his squadron and get into the action. However, it was not until February 1942 that his fracture was fully healed and he was able to return.
Over the summer, Hill flew over Bergen County with his squadron and circled his home on Washington Avenue. It was his way of bidding farewell to his mother and father, as the young pilot was on his way to the British Isles. In his last letter to his mother before leaving, dated July 26, he said he expected to be elevated to the rank of captain.
Then, all of a sudden, the 23-year-old airman was all over the newspapers.
‘It’s Hill of Hillsdale!’
The Associated Press reported in August 1942, “While Flying Fortresses of the United States Army were knocking out the largest German fighter field in the Dieppe area yesterday, United States fighter pilots scored three probable victories in one of the war’s biggest air shows. Altogether the Allies made 2,500 sorties from dawn to dusk. In aviator terms, a sortie is one flight by one plane. The American fighter pilots came home with sore necks and experience crowded into one day which might have taken weeks of non-combatant training to match.”
Hill was just one of the pilots assigned in the American contingent to protect the commandos raiding Dieppe, France. Yet, in the nationally-published reports, he was the only man picked out by name: “Capt. Frank Hill, 23, of Hillsdale, N.J., shot down a Focke-Wulf 190, Germany’s fast new fighter, for the first American fighter victory of the war.”
The Paterson Morning Call reported, “The Hill family yesterday received the news of their son’s participation in the commando raid on France Wednesday with glad hearts, for they had not known of his whereabouts for several weeks.”
Hill’s wife Linda was visiting her parents in Wisconsin when the news broke. She had last spoken to her husband three weeks earlier, at which time he told her of having led an American squadron in an exhibition flight for the king and queen of England, George VI and Elizabeth.
The milkman was doing his morning rounds when he spotted Linda and offered congratulations for her husband’s promotion and his exploits over Dieppe. That was the first she had learned of it, as she had not yet seen the newspaper.
It should be noted that Hill himself only ever claimed a “probable” in shooting down the first Nazi plane.
In his 2020 book “Aces Against Germany,” author Eric Hammel explains the following: “Captain Frank Hill’s smoking FW-190 was initially treated by victory-hungry American reporters as the first full air-to-air kill scored by a U.S. Army Air Forces pilot over Europe in World War II, but the rules and conventions for awarding victories, at the time, borrowed from the British. Thus, since no one had actually seen the German fighter crash into the English Channel, Hill received credit for a ‘probable’ victory.”
The first official full air-to-air victory credit, scored over Dieppe on Aug. 19, 1943 at 9 a.m., went to Second Lt. Samuel Junkin of the 309th Fighter Squadron. Junkin was severely wounded and shot down in the same action.
A hero’s homecoming
On Sunday, Nov. 14, 1943, thousands of people gathered in downtown Hillsdale for a “welcome home” celebration for Lt. Col. Hill. From every corner of the Pascack Valley people came to see the newly returned hero. A crowd lined Broadway just to catch a glimpse of Hill as he rode by in the backset of a convertible during the parade held in his honor.
Afterwards more than 1,000 people jammed into the Hillsdale school auditorium (what is now George G. White Middle School), where they heard patriotic music and congratulatory speeches from a list of local officials. However, it was the stories told by Hill himself that made the day unforgettable.
With 166 missions and more than 240 combat hours in the sky to his credit, 24-year-old Hill told of battles over Dieppe, North Africa, Pantelleria, Sicily, and Italy. He told the crowd about how he shot down six planes alone, and one with another flyer. He thrilled with stories of how he got his first Nazi over Dieppe, how he chased the Focke-Wolfe 190s and the Messerschmitts of the German Luftwaffe in and out of the clouds over North Africa, how his air group demolished 28 Italian planes over Pantelleria, and how they caused the Germans to evacuate Sicily.
Hill received a tremendous ovation, as well as a signet ring from Mayor Frank E. Hafemann on behalf of the people of Hillsdale. After the speeches, the people swarmed the stage to meet Hill and get his autograph.
Hill remained in the U.S. Army Air Corps, which was later succeeded by the Air Force as an independent military branch in 1947. During his career he served as the senior air instructor for the New York Air National Guard, director of operations at Air Defense Command in Colorado, and was commander of the 33rd Air Division in Virginia.
He retired as a colonel in 1969, settled in Pompton Plains, and ran a real estate brokerage. In 1992 he was inducted in the Aviation Hall of Fame. When he died at 92 in 2012, he was survived by wife Linda, as well as a daughter, two sons, eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
The flying ace, who was awarded with the Distinguished Flying Cross, Silver Star, and Air Medal with 19 Oak Leaf Clusters, Legion of Merit with two Oak Leaf Clusters, and five Air Force Commendation medals during his lifetime, received another award posthumously in the form of a Congressional Gold Medal in 2015.
The southerly route across the Woodcliff Reservoir, Church Road, was dedicated as the Frank A. Hill Causeway on July 21, 2017.
This original, more complete version of this story first appeared in RELICS, the quarterly newsletter of the Pascack Historical Society. Kristin Beuscher is president of Pascack Historical Society.