Frank Josef Cuhel (September 28, 1904 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – February 22, 1943 in Lisbon, Portugal) was an American athlete who competed mainly in the 400 metre hurdles.
At his alma mater University of Iowa, Cuhel was a three-year letterman, playing football in addition to track. In 1928 he won the 220 yd hurdles at the NCAA championships, breaking the meeting record.[1] He was elected to the U of I Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993.[2]
His success in the Olympics was such that upon graduation he took up work as a business envoy for a number of Dutch firms doing business in America. Eventually this business sent him to Java in Indonesia, which is where he found himself at the start of World War II.
As the islands became a more important strategic theater for World War II operations, Cuhel was hired by Mutual Broadcasting Systems to serve as a war correspondent, issuing radio reports of any action or newsworthy items. When Java fell to the Japanese, Cuhel and other correspondents made a daring last minute escape.
Blower, Brooke L. (2023). Americans in a World at War: Intimate Histories from the Crash of Pan Am's Yankee Clipper (Hardcover). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN9780199322008.
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