Allan Chase Franken 1924-1945

My mother's second cousin, Allan Chase Franken died as a soldier in WWII in May 1945 in the Philippines.  Gunshot wound to the face.  He's buried in a military cemetery in the Philippines.  He was not part of the family narrative, neither my cousin Mary Ann nor I knew about it until I ran into it yesterday just plowing through the Ancestry hints.

Turns out that his gravesite became part of Operation Benjamin to identify Jewish  soldiers and replace the cross with the star of David.  My feelings are a bit mixed about this as the star of David is not a universal symbol like a cross.  In Feb 2020, right before COVID closed everything down, there was a ceremony and changing of the headstones at this large cemetery in the Phillipines.  Private Franken was included.  Here his nephew Rabbi John Franken (my third cousin) speaks in honor of his uncle whose new headstone is in the foreground.  A Los Angeles Time article notes that this is the first time that a family member had visited the cemetery.

How come we never knew?  Mary Ann and I are pondering.