Robert C. Cozens
95TH BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
1996 REUNION, SAVANNAH, GA
Bob Cozens (Robert C.), interviewed by Margaret Blagg
BC: This is Bob Cozens. We are at the DeSoto Hilton Hotel in Savannah, Georgia. It is the 27th day of August, 1996, and we are here for the reunion of the 95th Bomb Group.
MB: For the record, what were your dates of service in the Army Air Corps?
BC: I enlisted in the Army Air Corps on the 2nd day of January, 1942 and I served through 1945, and left service early in 1946.
MB: How much of that time was spent with the 95th BG?
BC: Essentially, a year-and-a-half.
MB: Those were at the end of your dates of service, then?
BC: No, I left the 95th with an assignment in the Pentagon in April of 1944.
MB: What was your principal career field?
BC: In the military, I was rated pilot.
MB: Which squadron were you with?
BC: 334th Squadron initially; started as flight leader in October of 1943. I took over command of the 335th Squadron and served in that capacity until I left in April of ’44.
MB: Let’s just start at the beginning of your induction. What year was that and where were you living at the time?
BC: Living in San Diego at the time, I was enrolled at San Diego State University. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, I was inducted into the Army Air Corps for training. Went through the West Coast training command in California and graduated on July 26, 1942.
MB: You took your pilot training at that time?
BC: Yes, primary, basic, and advanced pilot training all in California.
MB: Did you have any memorable training experiences you would like to relate?
BC: Well, I think there is one that is very memorable. In basic training, in learning to fly a BT13 with my instructor, we were at approximately 10,000 feet and he asked me to put it into a tight spin to the right, which I did; then he asked me to pull it out of the spin and when I did, it pulled into a stall and went into a tight spin to the left. I suspect today that if the instructor pilot had not been with me, I probably would not be here to tell you this story.
MB: You got to test a right and a left spin at the same time! You were one of the first pilots to go over for the 95th.
BC: We went over, yes, one of the original pilots in the 95th and we started our trek overseas after a winter in South Dakota, Rapid City—very tenuous training weather, winds and terrible training [weather]. As a matter of fact, they sent our squadrons down to Pueblo, Colorado for supposedly better flying weather. The first night out, one of our squadron airplanes got caught in a snowstorm and crashed and killed all on board, so that proved not to be a very effective training area, either.
MB: I guess not. Then, how did you get to England? What was the route that you took?
BC: It was a rather lengthy, circuitous route down across the United States to Florida then across the Caribbean, then down into South America, across to Africa, back up to England. That took us weeks to get the whole flying group over there. I think of a little incident. I had gotten a new navigator shortly before we left to go overseas because my navigator was promoted to be the group navigator. So, I had not had the opportunity to fly that much with Lt. Prichard. It’s a long way across from South America to Africa. We left South America about 1:00 in the morning in a rain and thunderstorm with no great incidents. We were out across the Atlantic and I knew that we should be getting there pretty soon, and I asked the navigator, I said, “Pritch, how are we coming? Are we on course? Are we going to get there on time?” He said, “Yes, sir, we’re on course, we’re going to get there on time.” I said, “Africa is pretty big. Why can’t I see it?” The weather conditions, the haze was such that looking into it you couldn’t see, but when we crossed the coast of Africa and looked straight down, you could see it fine. We made landfall about five miles south of where we were, so from then on I had great confidence in my navigator.
MB: Why was that route chosen to get over to England?
BC: Well, I suppose—I don’t really know other than safest way to get all of the aircraft over there. I think in later years they were using the northern route up around Greenland and Iceland, but we were chosen to take that route.
MB: Once you got there, you had to set up the base, too, didn’t you?
BC: Well, we shared our bases. A little sideline—the day I landed in England was the day that my son was born in San Diego, which I didn’t know about at the time. But, I learned about it a few weeks later, so that was a memorable date, too. But, we shared bases with other groups that were already there for the first couple of months, and then we finally got to our base in Horham at a later time.
MB: What would you say would be a typical day at the 95th, or was there such a thing as a typical day?
BC: I don’t know whether there was anything that was typical. There were a lot of things that were atypical, I suppose. We had a horrible experience when we were stationed at Alconbury, when they were loading bombs for a mission and the bomb load went off and killed 21 of our ground crew people and destroyed a number of aircraft. It just so happened I was in what we called our barracks, an old estate building I think, and a number of us were over there playing poker. We thought maybe the boiler room had blown up or something. It was a terrible, terrible experience, so we all remember Alconbury because of that experience.
MB: Tell me about some of the missions you were on.
BC: It started out the first mission was a short one over southern France and somewhat uneventful. I seem to have had thereafter—for the next five missions or so—I experienced some type of mechanical problem with my aircraft and returned to base—so much so that I know the commanding officer and others were concerned about my mental capacity to stay and fight, I guess, if you will. But, truly, in my mind, I had sufficient mechanical problems to warrant returning the aircraft and the crew for repair. Finally, my third mission was one in which the group suffered its worst losses. We were flying to Kiel to bomb the sub pens there. As I recall, we put 27 aircraft up and we lost 11 aircraft, including General Forrest, who was our Wing Commander. Gen. Forrest was flying in the aircraft ahead of me along with my squadron commander and the group navigator, who had formerly been my navigator, and one of my very close friends, who was the flight leader, one of the original flight leaders—there were three of us in the 334th Squadron. And, that was a terrible, terrible shock. So, that was my third combat mission and I felt that I was well baptized by that time.
MB: I can imagine. Did you ever have to make an emergency landing, or ditch, or were you every shot down?
BC: No, fortunately not shot down. The closest thing to an emergency landing was the shuttle mission that we made in August, August 17 in ’43, I believe, where we bombed Regensburg in southern Germany. Rather than fighting our way back to England, we headed south across the Alps, across the Mediterranean, and landed in Africa. In my pre-landing check, I realized that I had no brakes—we had lost the hydraulic brake system. So that was somewhat of a challenge, although we were able to get the airplane on the ground safely, keep it rolling straight. Just as we approached the end of the runway, we unlocked the tail wheel and in the dust we made a 180-degree, looking back down the runway, and no further damage to the aircraft.
MB: Oh, my goodness. Was that very common, to go down to Africa? Did that happen very much?
BC: No, that was the first time that we had done it. We had, of course, a long way into the German targets at that time, and we would have a lot of German fighter attacks, as we did have very little fighter cover of our own. The Germans were smart enough; they knew exactly what range our fighter cover had. Within a minute after our fighter cover left, we knew we would be under attack by the German fighters, and we had a lot of them that day. Coincidentally, we were leading the wing and Col. Gerhart, who was our Group Commander, was flying in the aircraft with us. He spent most of his time down in the nose firing guns. But, it was interesting. Unfortunately, it was a long trip and some of the aircraft didn’t make it across the Mediterranean, and had to ditch—ran out of fuel. On the fun side, when we got to Africa, we had fresh eggs, white bread, and watermelon. We had not seen any of those in England.
MB: That’s great. What was your crew like?
BC: The crew was a very cohesive crew. We trained together, first in Spokane, then Ephrata, then Rapid City. As I said earlier, we did change our navigator, but Pritch just fit in extremely well with the rest of the crew. Unfortunately, for me, when I assumed command of the 335th squadron, then I had to give up my crew because I couldn’t have my old crew and own airplane then. That airplane, incidentally, was named Patsy Ann after my wife, and I think we went through at least three Patsy Anns—damage of one type or another. Unfortunately, Patsy Ann III was shot down a month or so after I gave up the crew and the airplane. The crew was not on that flight, but they were on another flight that got shot down, too, so many of them spent many days, months, and years in a POW camp.
MB: I’m curious, also, about the experience that all of you had coming together from so many different parts of the country, so many different backgrounds. What was that like to suddenly just be thrown with so many different people?
BC: You know, it’s interesting. I’ve often thought in today’s world whether you could develop the same camaraderie that we developed at that time. There, I think, was just a sense of cause that we all knew that the job had to be done and knew that we had to work together to get it done. But, ten individuals together who’d never met before this time, coming, as you say, from various walks of life—and all sufficiently well-trained. I think we would all have liked to have had more training before we went into combat, but we didn’t have that choice. They needed us then and so we went. Interesting.
MB: It must have been. What about being in England? Did you have a chance to see much of England?
BC: Well, we did occasionally get into London, but not too many other areas other than immediately around the bases where we were. But, we would generally take the train into London, which, as I recall, was about two hours away by train. London, of course, was still under attack, generally at night, by the German bombers and so forth. When London blacked out, it was black. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, so you had extreme difficulty getting out anywhere at night. But, by and large, that was the extent of our holidays, and I suppose—I can’t recall—in the year plus that I was with the 95th group, I probably got to London four times maybe.
MB: What about life on the base? Was there down time, or were you up all the time flying?
BC: No, there was a lot of down time. The weather, of course, in England was not the best for flying, but there always seemed to be things to keep us busy. It is hard to think back now and say, “What did I do with all my time when we were not preparing for a mission?” But, it seemed like we were always kept very busy.
MB: I know that none of you will claim the term “hero,” even though we think you are, but could you tell me, describe for me, a courageous act that you witnessed during the war—probably many you witnessed.
BC: Oh, heavens. I haven’t really thought of any one in particular, and I’m racking my brain right now just how to respond to that question, and nothing seems to come into focus.
MB: I think it took courage every time you got up there. I can’t imagine facing that horror every day. How did you do it?
BC: Well, as I have told my wife, I said I never had a feeling that I wasn’t going to get through. However, I don’t know whether those who didn’t had the same feeling, too. Certainly, a lot of it had to do with luck, because the anti-aircraft shells that were exploding around—there was no way to know whether it’s got your name on it or not. And when you are flying in formation and have to—for the benefit of the group and for yourself—to keep tightly in formation, you can’t do a lot of evasive action with the fighter attacks. So, a lot of it certainly had to be luck. But, I think I just had the mental attitude that I was going to make it and I did. As I say, I don’t really know—those who didn’t make it, whether they felt the same way, too.
MB: Well, human nature can usually always fine something humorous even in adversity. Were there funny things you recall that happened during the war?
BC: I mentioned taking the train to London. One time, I guess, we were a little short of time and my buddy and I took a B17 and we flew into London. It was early in the day and it was dark when we left, and our base by air was probably no more than twenty, twenty-five minutes from London. When we headed back, would you believe we couldn’t find our base? It was really blacked out. Of course, there were a number of bases close to each other and they had low intensity lights on. We could see some runway lights, but we didn’t know whether they were ours or not. We had to swallow our pride and give the emergency call, which was, “Hello, Darky; hello, Darky.” We identified ourselves, and then they turned on some lights so we could land. And, we were both squadron commanders at the time, so it was rather embarrassing.
MB: Oh, that’s great! What was it like to come home, finally?
BC: Well, coming home to me was a special treat—not only to join my wife whom I left 7-1/2 months pregnant and went overseas—but to find a young son there over a year old. It was quite an experience. Difficult, I think, for my son as it was for me, because he had experienced his mother’s full attention ever since he was born, and here is this strange man coming into his life and taking some of that attention away from him. He wasn’t too sure he liked that too well; but, we learned to get along fine.
MB: I’m sure so. One other thing I’m curious about is just when and why and how did you get interested in the Association—the 95th Association?
BC: I got involved, I guess, when they had the reunion—we were first aware of a reunion in Las Vegas in 1983, I believe. We attended the reunion and renewed some friendships with some people and then it just kind of grew from there. It has been very rewarding, I think, to be able to get members of the group together. There ae those I never knew who served perhaps after I left the group, but they all seem to have the same pride in having belonged to the 95th.
MB: Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to add that we didn’t have a chance to touch on?
BC: I think we have covered it pretty well. Thank you for the opportunity.