A collection of medals from Niagara County’s most decorated World War I veteran are now on display in the city he once called home.
Among the 14 medals and patches Frank Gaffney received for his service, the most prominent is his Medal of Honor, the highest award for military valor in the United States. Gaffney is one of only 126 World War I soldiers to receive the medal for his heroic efforts in a 1918 battle in France.
In a ceremony coinciding with Veterans Day, Gaffney’s family was on hand with local veterans, county and state officials and others to unveil the new display of his awards in the rotunda of the Niagara County Courthouse.
“This is all about Frank Gaffney’s heroism and honoring that,” Craig Bacon, deputy county historian, said.
Niagara County Historian Catherine Emerson said Teresa Foran, the wife of Gaffney’s grandson, donated the medals to the county so that they could be preserved and properly displayed to recognize Gaffney’s legacy in the place where he lived.
“That’s why they’re giving (the collecwtion) to Niagara County, so that they can be kept together so that people can see them and appreciate them, whereas if you gave them to the Smithsonian, they’d be lost in the basement,” Emerson said.
John Strasburg, who authored a book on Gaffney titled “He Charged Alone,” said the display will help Gaffney’s “star to shine again” by putting his service on full display.
“Up until his death in 1948, Frank was well remembered in Western New York and the nation, but as time passed, his story became lost,” Strasburg said during the ceremony.
That story began in Lockport, which Gaffney called home for several years with his family at 192 South Niagara Street. Before his military service, he was a member of the city fire department and worked at Harrison Radiator.
According to Emerson, when Gaffney enlisted in the Army in 1917, he had lied about his age because he would have been “too old” to serve at the age of 33. Emerson joined the 27th Infantry Brigade and was stationed at Camp Wadsworth near Spartanburg, South Carolina, for training before being sent out to fight on the frontlines in France the following year.
Based on her research, Emerson describes Gaffney as a man with a sense of humor who would step up when called upon.
“He was a brawler, he was going to play pranks on people, but when push came to shove… he was a reluctant leader when he had to be,” she said.
His leadership came into play in a battle at St. Quentin Canal in France in September 1918.
Gaffney pushed forward alone towards enemy lines after most of his squad was killed or wounded to take out German forces in the dugout trenches.
He ultimately captured 80 prisoners and held the position until reinforcements arrived. Those efforts led to him receiving his Medal of Honor.
In the weeks following that, Gaffney was wounded in another battle and the injury led to his left arm being amputated, which garnered him a Purple Heart.
After the war, Gaffney returned to Niagara County and settled into the LaSalle neighborhood of Niagara Falls. He lived there until his death in 1948, at age 62, from falling off a second-story porch at his home.
While some historians and enthusiasts have said Gaffney is the “second best” soldier to fight in World War I, after Sergeant Alvin York, Emerson noted that the heroics of both men are not one-for-one comparisons.
“It is true that Sergeant York killed more enemies and took more prisoners than Gaffney. But that was only because there were more of the enemies on his part in the line. It’s impossible to rank either ahead of the other in courage. With these men there is no second,” she said.