World War II hero’s home for sale

Frank Sell, a well-liked teenager in West Milford in the early 1940s, was one of the many young patriots who, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the nation into World War II, joined the military.

After Navy basic training, he was assigned to the USS Juneau, a Navy Atlanta Class light cruiser. Named for the capital of Alaska, the ship and crew survived many battles before being sunk by Japanese Submarine I-26 during the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Pacific on Nov. 13, 1942.

There were 687 men from the Juneau listed as killed in action; Sell was one of them.

Soon after the war ended, an American Legion Post was formed in West Milford and named for Sell.

The post continued to be known as the Frank A. Sell American Legion Post 289 until recently. Current leaders designated it as West Milford American Legion Post 289.

The house where Sell grew up, on Macopin Road at the corner of Maple Road, recently was put on the market. It has been a long time since the Sell family lived there but a few people remember them.

Tavern in the ‘40s

In the 1940s, George Sell Sr. and his wife, Mary, had a tavern in the front part of the house and offered fast food, such as hamburgers, hot dogs and sandwiches, as well as beer and alcoholic drinks.

Their three children were George Jr., Frank and Mildred.

The business was operated in the closed-in sunporch in the front of the two-story home.

After George Sell Sr. died at a young age, his widow continued to operate the tavern to support her family.

Frank, the middle child, started working as a young man at the Little and Card General Store on what is now Old Route 23 in Newfoundland. The business had a traveling store in a refurbished school bus that was driven to homes throughout the township.

Retired Councilman Peter Gillen, now in his 80s, remembers when the grocery bus stopped at his family home on Wood Street, off Macopin Road in the Echo Lake community.

A section of the bus was a butcher shop, where meat was cut as ordered by the customer.

Gillen’s mother, Marion, especially enjoyed being able to buy good quality fruits and vegetables without traveling to the nearest stores in Butler.

The family enjoyed a friendship with young Frank. They were proud when he joined the Navy.

Gillen joined the Army and was a chaplain’s assistant during the Korean War.

No rescue attempt

The Juneau was hit before noon Nov. 13, 1942. The ship had been traveling with two other cruisers damaged in the battle, Helena and San Francisco, and they were going to Espititu Santo for repairs.

The ship was limping but maintaining 13 knots when the torpedo aimed at her hit the powder magazine, causing the ship to explode in a great ball of fire.

Afraid there would be more submarine attacks and wrongly assuming that the explosion left no survivors, the two ships left without any rescue attempt. Later reports speculated that as many as 133 crew members may have survived the blast.

Only 10 survivors were found eight days later as they drifted in shark-infested waters with just a few food rations left to eat and rainwater to drink.

Five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, were on the ship. None of them survived. A 1944 movie “The Sullivans” told their life story. More information can be found in the books “The Loss of the USS Juneau” and “Left to Die - The Tragedy of the USS Juneau” by Dan Kurzman (1994).

Mary Sell sold the tavern. After that, the building was used as a home.

She later married a widowed retired jeweler, Clarence Dodd, who lived on Ratzer Road in Preakness. A few years later, she was killed in a crash while a passenger in Dodd’s car.

As he was backing out of the driveway of their home, the car was struck by an oncoming car, fatally injuring her.