Ships
- USS Minneapolis (CA-36) Captain from 26 September 1940 · Relieved on 6 September 1942
Frank Jacob Lowry was born in Cresco, Iowa, on 15 February 1888. He attended St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, and in 1907 received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, graduating with the class of 1911. During the First World War he served in submarines, the start of a career that carried him from small craft to a heavy cruiser and then to large amphibious commands.
Between the wars he served in surface ships and in shore billets. He commanded the destroyer Hale from 7 June 1931 until 4 July 1933, and he also commanded the Naval Training Station at Great Lakes, Illinois. From March 1938 to September 1940 he worked in the officer personnel division of the Bureau of Navigation in Washington. On 2 November 1938 he was promoted to captain.
Lowry assumed command of the heavy cruiser Minneapolis on 26 September 1940. He was still her captain when the Pacific war began in December 1941. In the months that followed, Minneapolis steamed with the carrier forces moving into the South Pacific.
On 7 and 8 May 1942, at the Battle of the Coral Sea, Minneapolis screened the carrier Lexington. Lowry directed the cruiser through two days of air attack. Lexington was sunk, and Minneapolis came out of the battle still fit for sea. For his conduct as commanding officer he received the Navy Cross. In June Minneapolis screened carriers again at the Battle of Midway. He kept the ship in the South Pacific through the opening of the Solomon Islands campaign and was relieved on 6 September 1942.
The Navy advanced him to rear admiral, and in February 1943 he became commander of the Moroccan Sea Frontier. From that post he moved to command of the Eighth Amphibious Force. In January 1944 his force put Allied troops ashore at Anzio, on the Italian coast south of Rome. The assault seized a beachhead, and for months afterward his ships brought in the men and supplies that held the lodgment until the army could break out.
In August 1944 he commanded the naval task force for the invasion of southern France. He led it into the assault area and directed the landing of the Allied Seventh Army, its equipment, and the French divisions that followed. Toulon and Marseille soon passed into Allied hands. For that command he received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. His wartime decorations also included the Legion of Merit, with a gold star denoting a second award.
He later served on the staff of General George S. Patton at Bad Nauheim, Germany. His final duty was command of the Mare Island-Vallejo Area of the San Francisco Naval Base. Lowry retired in March 1950 and was advanced to vice admiral on the retired list for his combat service. He died on 26 March 1955. In 1954 he published his own account of the naval side of the Anzio landing.