Honoring the Fallen: 1/Lt. Robert J. Koss
1/Lt. Robert J. Koss, while he was still serving as an instructor at Columbia Air Base with the 378th Bomb Squadron
The final member of that fatal mission of May 16, 1945, to be returned to his hometown for final burial was 1/Lt. Robert J. Koss.
Koss had enlisted in Chicago on April 9, 1941. The youngest of a large Slovenian family, he was born a month following his father’s death. Koss had moved with his mother and several siblings to Chicago from their farm east of Pittsburgh in 1933, when they were forced to relocate after Mrs. Anna Koss lost the farm and her general store when neighbors were unable to pay their debts during the Depression. He was initially attached to an infantry unit before acceptance as an aviation cadet. After the completion of training as a navigator-bombardier at Roswell, New Mexico, Koss was attached to the 378th Bombardment Squadron, 309th Bombardment Group that trained B-25 pilots and aircrews at Columbia Air Base prior to their assignment to combat units overseas. After the unit was inactivated in May 1944, Koss was offered another training assignment in the US, but he wanted to be “in it” and declined. He was sent to Karachi, where he trained Chinese airmen with the Operational Training Unit. At about Christmas 1944, he received his orders to China and was attached to the 17th Fighter Squadron before transfer to the 3rd Bomb Squadron on January 16. He did not at first inform his widowed mother or older siblings that he was assigned to an operational unit. They knew that he was in China, but he had told them he was flying supplies over the Hump to aid the Chinese.
On January 21, Koss was one of three officers who were placed in command of details of enlisted men as the squadron moved from Peishiyi (Baishiyi) to Liangshan (Liangping). Traveling by sampan and river steamer, they transported squadron equipment and supplies to their new base. All of them completed the transfer by truck, traversing the mountains via winding, switchback roads and arriving on the twenty-seventh. Soon afterward, Koss described the move in a letter to his mother. “We took a two day trip on a river steamer and sampan and really got to see China. I can’t tell you where we went as yet but it was interesting,” he wrote in his travelogue. “You can not go a single block in China anywhere with out running in to a house or village or city. Evy [his personal contraction for every] little bit of land is cultivated even on the steepest mountain side, mostly rice paddies. We shot wild ducks on the way down. We are planning on going dove hunting here and if we get time we will go deer hunting too.” Koss sent home a photo that he captioned, “Sampan shoots the rapids. I rode in one like this.” It was identical to a picture that my dad sent home to my mom.
Koss completed twenty-six missions as a navigator. The most notable was on March 30, when four B-25s were off to hit "the large railroad bridge across the Yellow River at Chungmow," according to the squadron operational report. Aircraft #722, a B-25J, was hit by enemy fire and went down. It took a week for the six-man crew to “walk out,” but they all returned safely with the aid of courageous Chinese villagers. Koss was back in the air two days following his return.
His final mission was the May 16 raid against Ichang airfield that took the lives of all six of the aircrew. (See “Honoring the Fallen: 1/Lt. Donald J. Davis” for details.) Ironically, their plane was designated A/C #722, a new B-25J-2 that replaced the plane with the same number lost on the March 30 mission. On this morning, Koss had told the assistant operations officer, in charge of making duty assignments, that he did not want to fly and asked that he be replaced. He was told that no replacement was available, and the assignment stood. Perhaps he had a premonition. Koss was one of those who died when the plane crashed and burned.
Next of kin began receiving notification in early June that Koss and the other crewmen were missing in action. All of them received official notifications in February 1946, confirming the deaths of the six men previously listed as missing. Mrs. Koss received a final letter from the adjutant general of the army stating that her son was killed in action and his body had been recovered. “I realize the anxiety you have suffered since he was first reported missing in action and deeply regret the sorrow this later report brings you. May the knowledge that he made the supreme sacrifice for his country be a source of sustaining comfort. My sympathy is with you in this time of great sorrow.’
Family members were informed that the six were exhumed from their common grave and reinterred at Shanghai before their remains were subsequently moved to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii to await instructions for final burial, but Mrs. Koss did not live to see her son’s return. She died in early 1947 of a broken heart, according to her family. Following her death, Koss’s sisters assumed responsibility for arranging to have his body shipped to their hometown. Although no clear evidence has been found regarding the date of his reburial, it seems likely that his remains accompanied those of the other three who were returned to the US and were buried in July. A Roman Catholic funeral mass for Lt. Bob Koss, followed by reburial at Grandview Cemetery, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was attended by his siblings and their families.
Want the whole story? Find it in The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II.