Welcome to American Legion, Frank E. Booma Post 6

Lieutenant Frank Booma died on July 11, 1918 in the Champagne region of France, during World War 1. He was killed by a bomb dropped from Boche aeroplane, as he led his men a second time into the trenches, after a period of rest behind the lines. He was 24 years old. 

Frank Jr. attended local schools and was a star athlete. He played football and basketball at the YMCA and graduated from Portsmouth High school in 1910. He took post graduate classes and captained the 1911 football and basketball teams. Before college he worked for Silas Pierce Company as a clerk. In 1915 he attended New Hampshire College (which became the University of New Hampshire). While there, he was a member of the football team, basketball team, and the rope-pull team. 

When America joined the war in 1917, he was at Plattsburgh, NY for training with the Reserve Officers Corps. “He was commissioned a lieutenant in August, 1917, and was one of the first of the newly appointed officers to volunteer for overseas duty.” He was attached to Battery A of the 151st Division field artillery.

Frank Booma’s body was initially interred in France but in 1921, it was removed to Portsmouth where he was memorialized and buried in the south cemetery. 

In June of 1919 a group of local veterans who had recently come home for the war met at the Portsmouth Elks home and formed a Portsmouth post of the American Legion of the World War. Fifty-five men were present. The charter was issued and signed in National Headquarters, Indianapolis on August 1, 1920. The charter was then forward to the Department of New Hampshire where it was signed and present on August 10, 1920. The charter was left open so that all men who took part in the war could become members.

The Frank E. Booma American Legion Post 6 is well situated in a military oriented city. Portsmouth, New Hampshire is bounded on one side by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard which as been in existence for over 100 years and on the other side the former Pease Air Force Base. Both military facilities have their own space in the history books. The Naval Shipyard was the site of the signing of the Russo-Japanese Treaty in 1905. Pease Air Force Base was the home of the 509th Bomb Wing. The “Enola Gay” was an aircraft assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.