Remembering Heights High alum and WWII vet Frolking

James E. Frolking at his 100th birthday party at Manikiki Golf Course, April 29, 2024. [photo: Jane Kaufman]

When U.S. Army Air Forces fighter pilot James E. Frolking’s P-51 Mustang was shot down on Oct. 7, 1944, he parachuted to a sandbar in the North Sea, landing in water chest deep. 

His first act was to light a cigarette.

Frolking, then 20, stayed put overnight, awaiting rescue. The next morning he paddled a dinghy to Noord Beveland, a German-occupied island in the Netherlands. The Dutch Underground safeguarded him on a farm, and he was liberated by Canadian forces who returned him to England about 30 days later. 

He maintained lifelong ties with the family who had hidden him, and penned a 1999 memoir about that experience, “Down in the Dutch Islands.” He spent the balance of World War II as a flight instructor in Abilene, Texas.

Frolking's first mission during World War II was on D-Day to guard the shipping lanes in the English Channel. 

“It was pretty spectacular,” he said. “It appeared you could step from one ship to another all the way from England to France.”

On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 2019, Frolking returned to Normandy. He stood behind President Donald Trump during the main ceremony. He was moved by the hero’s welcome he and other veterans received.

“It was the most amazing trip I had ever taken,” he said. “The French people were just so loving and grateful.”

Frolking was born in Cleveland on April 30, 1924. He spent most of his childhood in Shaker Heights, but after his parents divorced, he moved with his mother to Cleveland Heights and graduated from Heights High in 1942.

On his 18th birthday, while a senior at Heights, he enlisted, and began aviation and cadet training on Dec. 7, 1942, exactly a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

(I had the opportunity to attend one of his many speaking engagements. Then in his 90s, he held the packed house at Lakewood Public Library spellbound as he recounted his final overseas mission.)

Frolking spent his career in banking and served one term on Shaker Heights City Council. In retirement he volunteered at Shaker Heights Municipal Court and did tax preparation through the American Association of Retired Persons' program. 

Asked what he was most proud of, he said it was his marriage to Patty Lou Schoonover, whom he met when they were both ticketing agents at United Airlines and married at Fairmount Presbyterian Church on April 6, 1948. The two raised their three boys in Shaker Heights.

In August, at the age of 100, he sang the National Anthem in a 12-man barbershop chorus at the Lake County Captains game against West Michigan in Eastlake. He died three weeks later, Sept. 5, 2024, at Hospice of the Western Reserve.

To read his full obituary, visit www.brown-forward.com/obituaries/james-frolking.