Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, Jr.

Who was Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, Jr.?

Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, Jr. was the author of Passages to Freedom, about his escape from a prison camp in Italy during World War II.

Frelinghuysen was born in East Hampton, New York, the son of Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, Sr., a New Jersey state senator and later U.S. senator. He graduated from Princeton University in 1934. During World War II, he served as an artillery captain in the First Infantry Division in North Africa where he was captured on November 23, 1942 by German troops and taken to a prison camp in Italy. He and another American POW escaped on September 23, 1943 and rejoined allied forces.

After the war, Frelinghuysen worked in insurance and later managed the family dairy business in Somerville, New Jersey. At the end of his life, he was living in Far Hills, New Jersey and died of pneumonia in Morristown.