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| Major Frank Cox was a weatherman in the 12th Weather Air Squadron. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/114177060/frank-truman-cox https://br.pinterest.com/pin/706854103994708923/ |
Frank Truman Cox, Jr. never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Frank was born on June 19, 1920 in Texas. His parents Frank and Ida were also both born in Texas. His father worked as a chiropractor. Frank was an only child. By 1940 Frank was still living at home and had completed four years of college at Baylor. Before joining the military, Frank spent many years participating in the Texas National Guard. He trained as a meteorologist at the University of Chicago. He was a slight 5' 6" tall and weighed under 130 lbs.
He joined the army in August 1942 and was commissioned an officer in December. With his knowledge about the weather he was assigned to 12th Weather Air Squadron and was sent overseas to the Mediterranean Theater in December 1942. He served as a weather officer and mobile weather unit commander. The 12th Weather Air Squadron started off in Morocco, but move forward as the Allies advanced. Its base changed to Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Italy, and finally Corsica. He was promoted first to captain and then to major.
Major Cox's father was also in the army. As a doctor, he served in a hospital unit in the Mediterranean and held the rank of Colonel.
On December 24, 1944 he was doing weather work on B-25 43-27768, nicknamed Buffalo Gal. He was killed when the plane crashed into a Corsican mountain. All eight men on board died.
His grave is at Waco Memorial Park in Waco, Texas.
This is one of the final 100 stories (76) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.
Last year on this date I profiled Alvin York, 76th Infantry Division, a relative of the famous World War I soldier of the same name. You can read about Alvin here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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