WWII photo of SSgt Dana White Cobb

Written by Colonel Chip Cobb, USA (ret)

The story below came to us from VBC Member Colonel Chip Cobb, USA (ret), whose uncle, SSgt Dana White Cobb, was killed in Italy in World War II. Dana was serving as a B-24 waist gunner with the 98th Bomb Group when his bomber was shot down on November 12, 1944. Colonel Cobb gave us permission to adapt his original fuller account titled Dana Cobb: The Final Mission, which can be read in its entirety here.

At 3:00 p.m., a train pulled into the station in Charlestown, New Hampshire, bearing a flag-draped casket accompanied by Staff Sergeant Alfred Halvorsen of the American Graves Registration Division. Inside were the long-awaited remains of Staff Sergeant Dana White Cobb, a 22-year-old B-24 waist gunner whose aircraft had been shot down five years earlier during a bombing mission over Nazi-occupied northern Italy.

The train had departed Brooklyn two days earlier. The casket was unloaded quietly and reverently and taken to Forest Hill Cemetery, where Dana’s father, James, stood waiting. The lid remained sealed. At graveside, Sergeant Halvorsen knelt before Dana’s mother, Emily, and presented her with the folded American flag. “This flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation and the United States Army,” he said, “as a token of appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.” It had taken five years of uncertainty, frustration, advocacy, and grief for the Cobb family to bring Dana home.

Dana was the epitome of small-town New England, the third of four children in a tightly knit family. His father worked as a mechanic and part-time farmer. Emily was the family’s heart—resilient and deeply religious. Dana was popular, modest, and a great athlete, starring at basketball especially. He graduated from high school in 1941 and, seven months later, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces. He trained at air bases in Texas, Mississippi, and Nebraska, qualifying as a waist gunner on the B-24 Liberator—a long-range, heavy bomber that became the workhorse of America’s strategic bombing campaign in Europe.

WWII bomber

In early 1944, Dana was assigned to the 344th Bomb Squadron, 98th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, based at Fortunato Airfield in southern Italy. The 98th had previously served in North Africa and earned the nickname “Pyramiders.” Two weeks before his deployment, Dana married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Frohock. The couple spent just days together before he was sent overseas.

By the fall of 1944, the war in Europe had entered a critical stage. German forces were retreating across France and Belgium, but in Italy they still held the rugged north. The main supply line into the theater was the Brenner Pass, a narrow corridor linking Innsbruck, Austria, to Verona, Italy. Destroying that route became a top Allied priority.

Map of Italy marking Brenner Pass, Lavis Viaduct and Gothic Line

Operation BINGO targeted bridges, tunnels, and viaducts along the Brenner Pass. One key structure was the Avisio Viaduct near Lavis—a reinforced masonry and steel structure spanning the Avisio River. German engineers had camouflaged it, positioned smoke generators nearby, and placed flak batteries in the surrounding mountains. The Avisio Viaduct had already withstood more than 200 bombing raids. Every time it was damaged, the Germans made rapid repairs using pre-fabricated materials stored in nearby shelters. Mission planners knew another strike was necessary—and it had to be decisive.

On the morning of November 12, Dana flew his final mission aboard a B-24 nicknamed I’ll Get By. It was led by Captain Frank DeBottis and carried twelve men—two more than standard. In addition to Dana, the crew included 1st Lt. Donald G. Stubbs, 1st Lt. John A. Robinson, 1st Lt. Walter Harnish, 1st Lt. Donald N. Mulhollen, 1st Lt. Nicklas Bubnovich, Capt. Theodore Lehmann (observer), T/Sgt. Raymond Hennessy, S/Sgt. Alan Miles, S/Sgt. Robert Roosa, and S/Sgt. Wayne Young. They took off from Fortunato Airfield at 11:30 a.m. Climbing through cloud cover to 22,800 feet, they reached the target area above Lavis under overcast skies. Weather conditions were poor, and flak batteries around the viaduct had an unobstructed view of the formations.

As the bombers approached, German anti-aircraft artillery opened fire. One round struck I’ll Get By directly behind the waist gunner’s position—where Dana was stationed. The explosion severed the tail and sent the aircraft into an uncontrolled spin. Observers in the formation later reported that the plane “essentially disintegrated.” No parachutes were seen. A fellow pilot grimly remarked, “They killed a lot of fish and made a lot of post holes that day.”

The wreckage landed in a vineyard near the village of Meano, outside Trento, just north of the target area. Witnesses described a horrific scene. The aircraft’s bomb load detonated on impact. A local priest, Don Giovanni Battistini, later wrote: “All the crewmembers died inside the aircraft because of the blast… All the bodies went completely apart and horribly mutilated.” German soldiers reached the site and forbade civilians from removing any remains. On November 14, two days after the crash, six mutilated bodies were recovered and buried by Italian soldiers under German supervision in a common grave. A simple wooden cross marked the mass grave. The priest conducted a funeral. “People sang funeral rites near the grave. Twenty-five soldiers stood in line and saluted,” he recalled.

In Charlestown, Dana’s family was notified he was missing in action. In a December 29, 1944 letter to a family friend, Emily Cobb wrote: “Dana’s plane received a direct hit over the target… The plane started losing altitude immediately, dropped out of the formation and was last seen disappearing in the clouds below. Of course, if the boys got out of the plane alive, they are prisoners undoubtedly, but there again is the awful uncertainty.”

The family hoped for months that Dana might have been taken prisoner. But as 1945 wore on, no news came.

In May 1945, U.S. military personnel exhumed the bodies in Meano. The priest gave them two dog tags—one from Capt. Lehmann, another bearing Dana White Cobb’s name. However, none of the remains had identification on them. Only one wore a partial flight jacket, which did not belong to Dana. Sergeant Stewart Kelly, who led the recovery team, wrapped each set of remains in mattress covers and labeled them numerically. Dana’s remains were assigned Mattress Cover No. 1. On May 25, they were buried in the U.S. Military Cemetery at Mirandola. His grave was listed as “Unknown”—Plot E, Row 9, Grave 681.

From 1945 through 1948, the Cobb family was caught in a maze of incomplete records and confusion. Dana’s remains were even briefly misidentified as those of another airman, Lt. Robert Held, who had been lost months later in a different theater. At one point, Army investigators confused clothing artifacts from another crash with those recovered from the Meano site. Delays in translating Italian witness statements and inconsistencies in flight rosters compounded the confusion. In late 1948, the Army contacted Emily Cobb requesting Dana’s dental records. Their dentist, Dr. Ray Hodgkins of Claremont, had no chart but remembered placing five silver fillings in Dana’s mouth. Emily shared this detail in a December 16 letter—a key breakthrough.

On March 4, 1949, a board of four physicians, a dentist, and a chaplain convened in Rome. Reviewing skeletal remains, dental records, and crash evidence, they compared skulls with reported dental histories. One skull had five silver fillings. It matched the description provided by Dr. Hodgkins. Combined with crash-site evidence, it confirmed Dana’s identity. On April 11, 1949, Staff Sergeant Dana White Cobb was officially identified, along with three other crewmembers: Walter Harnish, Nicklas Bubnovich, and Wayne Young.

Newspaper article on SSgt Dana White Cobb. Headline reads Charlestown Flier Dead.

Earlier that March, Congressman Norris Cotton had written to the War Department on the Cobbs’ behalf, pressing for answers. His inquiry, though not the catalyst, helped speed up communication. On April 28, 1949, the Cobb family was notified of Dana’s identification. His remains were transferred to Florence and readied for shipment home. On December 1, 1949, Sergeant Halvorsen escorted the casket to Charlestown.

At 3:00 p.m., the train arrived. Dana’s father, James, stood on the platform. The casket remained sealed. A short procession brought it to Forest Hill Cemetery. That afternoon, Dana was buried.

Staff Sergeant Dana White Cobb was New Hampshire’s 1,442nd combat death in World War II. His story reflects the cost of war not only in life lost, but in the pain of those left behind. His return was made possible only as the the result of persistence, paperwork, a dentist’s memory, and a mother’s hope.

This Memorial Day, a flag will be placed beside his headstone in Forest Hill.

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