Sgt. Kenneth A. Cox - ASN 17078406 - 18 Jan 1945 - HQ 14th AF

[Leendert]

On 18 Jan 1945 an 11th BS/341st BG B-25 (s/n ?) crashed at the USAAF airbase at Yangkai, southern China on return from a bombing mission.
Among the victims was Sgt. Kenneth A. Cox, air combat cameraman, who that day was a passenger in the B-25.

The India-Burma Theater Roundup newspaper of 15 March 1945 tells of the acquittal of a (USAAF) Lt-Col who apparently had fired two 'mercy bullets' in the head of a trapped sergeant in the burning wreckage. Attempts to free the man had been unsuccessful. (Acquittal was based on medical evidence that the man had more likely died from burning than the gunshots.)

Trying to match the circumstances around Sgt. Cox's death with the newspaper article. Please do note I am not after the undisclosed name of the court martialed Lt-Col.
Regards,
Leendert

[Buckeye30]

Hi Leendert. Tony Strotman's 341BG web-site ( www.usaaf-in-cbi.com") has 2 - 11BS losses in January, on the 14th and 18th; the latter B-25 crashed on the runway at Chihkiang at 1545, pilot 1/Lt. Meadows and engineer-gunner S/Sgt. Edelmann were killed. There's no mention of a passenger I'm afraid (nor serial no.).
The 11th was operating from Yangkai but Chihkiang was CACW at the time.
Hope this helps a little.


Nick

[Leendert]

Thanks, Nick. Name of Sgt. Kenneth Cox is among 11th BS KIA personnel, although he may not have belonged to that unit officially: http://www.usaaf-in-cbi.com/341st_we..._personnel.htm

Did some further digging and came across an online publication named "Annual Pictorial Magazine of the Flying Tigers of the 14th Air Force Association" of 1989 that on p. 20 and following tells of the crash with Sgt. Kenneth Cox being trapped and indeed as cameraman on the B-25.
Other crew of the B-25 mentioned are John Wise (P), Buster P. Meadows (CP), Thomas Killian, Ralph Surbur, Joseph Bruckner and Charles Edelmann (DIS).
This makes a total of seven, including Cox.

Story however also tells of the shooting by the fully named Lt-Cdr., but here it is the engineer he fired at, so this would have been Sgt. Edelmann instead. He also was trapped inside the burning wreck.
On the other hand, Sgt. Cox was thought to have died from smoke inhalation already when rescuers managed to reach him.

For those interested, a detailed account here under 18 January 1945, I found now: http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/sino-japanese-1945.htm

Regards,

Leendert

[RSwank]

This link is to a series of short videos featuring Mitch Touart, who was in the 11th BS.

https://www.witnesstowar.org/search_...are=316f8931fa

The link displays 10 videos per page. Toward the bottom the first page is the link to the 2nd page, which has the 11th video. In that video Touart talks about this crash, Edelmann and Dunning and the aftermath.

[Leendert]

All in all, it must have been terrible dilemma for Lt-Col Dunning.

Leendert