Frank Conn, a decorated soldier, prisoner of war and longtime Pittsburgh fire captain, died Thursday. He was 89.

His life of public service was an exciting one, yet it still left him in the shadow of his older brother, former world light-heavyweight boxing champion Billy Conn. Even so, Frank Conn always maintained an identity of his own, said Jim Conn, another brother.

"Billy was our most famous brother, but Frank was the biggest hero," said Jim Conn, a retired Pittsburgh police detective. "He served his country and his family well."

Frank Conn, of Morningside, died at his home less than two months after breaking his left wrist and left hip in a fall, said his daughter, Denise Keller. After that, the man who had survived the D-Day invasion, the Battle of the Bulge and a German POW camp seemed to lose his will, she said.

Mr. Conn grew up in East Liberty during the Great Depression. He quit school in ninth grade, after just one day at Peabody High, for reasons everybody understood.

"He had to help support his family," Mrs. Keller said.

Mr. Conn enlisted in the Army in February 1941, the year the Conn name would become famous across the planet. On June 18 at the Polo Grounds in New York, 169-pound Billy Conn built a solid lead over feared heavyweight champion Joe Louis through 12 rounds of a 15-round title fight. Then Mr. Louis, 30 pounds heavier than his challenger, rallied in the hard-luck round, the 13th, to win by knockout.

In defeat, Billy Conn became a sports figure of mythic proportion. Frank Conn went off to serve in World War II with the 28th Infantry Division Signal Corps.

He landed at Normandy in the D-Day invasion in 1944, then fought his way across northern France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Captured by German soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge, Frank Conn spent his last five months of war in a stalag.

Mr. Conn, who was 6 feet 1, lost 60 pounds while the Germans held him captive. He emerged as a scrawny 120-pounder with ulcers when the prison camp was liberated in May 1945.

Mr. Conn returned to Pittsburgh after the war and became a firefighter. To support his wife, Helen, and their six children, he worked two extra jobs, as a furniture mover and bartender, but fighting fires was what he loved.

He spent 32 years with the fire department, mostly at stations in Squirrel Hill and Stanton Heights. He rose to the rank of captain, and tasted so much smoke and soot that he developed emphysema. He retired because of disability in 1981, Mrs. Keller said.

Life's pressures and pitfalls never seemed to get him down, said his brother Jim.

"I looked up to him from the time I was a child. He had such a ready wit."

He is survived by five children: Dr. Frank Conn, of Clayton, N.C.; Denise Keller, of Morningside; Brian Conn, of Ridgewood, N.J.; and Kathy Lyons and Lisa Eisel, both of Cranberry; three siblings, Mary Jane Cunningham, of Lower Burrell; Peggy McKenna, of Camp Hill, Cumberland County; and Jim Conn of Knoxville, Tenn.

His funeral will be at 9 a.m. today in St. Raphael Church, Morningside.