Frank L. Bagiotti

Frank Bagiotti was born in Landisville, New Jersey, in 1921. He grew up in Vineland, NJ, where he was active on the high school football team. Bagiotti graduated in 1939, and went to work as a truck driver for a few years before joining the Marine Corps in the sumer of 1942.

In January, 1943 Bagiotti was assigned to Company B, First Separate Battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He traveled with them to Camp Pendleton, California, where the Separate Battalion became First Battalion, 24th Marines. They began intensive training for combat in the Pacific, but PFC Bagiotti was not with them often; recurring bouts of illness or various injuries kept him confined to the post hospital for most of October and November, 1943. Eventually, his commanding officers decided to transfer him to the staff of Camp Pendleton, and went into combat without him.

PFC Bagiotti spent another several weeks on limited duty while he recovered; once he returned to active duty, he was assigned as a truck driver to Camp Pendleton’s Motor Transport pool. He served at Pendleton and Camp Dunlap until returned to the hospital in January, 1945; he was honorably discharged for disability on April 3.

Frank Bagiotti hung up his uniform and returned to New Jersey. He worked as a liquor salesman for Garden State Beverage Company, and was the owner and operator of the Sea and Ski Shop in Landisville. He married Cecelia Bera and raised a family in Vineland.

Bagiotti died at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia in 2004 and is buried in Our Lady of Victories Cemetery, Landisville, NJ.