Nominated by: Mark Weber, Erie Maritime Museum
 The Northwestern Pennsylvania region has been associated with a number of military heroes including George Washington, Anthony Wayne, Oliver Hazard Perry, Strong Vincent and Charles V. Gridley. During World War II thousands of Erie County men and women served their nation in the Armed Forces and on the home front. The most famous Erie serviceman of the war was Philip G. Cochran.
Philip Gerald Cochran was born in Erie on January 29, 1910 to Bernard and Lucy Cochran. The Cochrans had five sons, the oldest, Paul, was born in 1907. Phil was the second born and was followed by Thomas (1915), John
(1917) and Joseph (1921). The family lived at 1052 West 9th Street, near Raspberry Street in Erie. Irish Catholics, they were members of St. Andrew's Parish where Phil was a soprano in the choir and an altar boy. Phil attended Emerson School at West 6th and Liberty Streets. Phil was avidly interested in horses and as a young boy he would take the streetcar to Algeria Farms where he would curry the horses in exchange for a ride. Phil was also mechanically inclined; he worked on bicycles and later the family's Model T car. Phil attended Erie's Central High School, graduating in 1927. His senior yearbook makes note of his "Irish wit," his love of football, and his popularity with the ladies.
After graduation Phil worked at Erie's Hammermill to save money for college. He eventually joined his older brother, Tom, at Ohio State University. During the school year, Phil earned money waiting tables and singing in his brother's band. Phil commented that being paid for his singing was "like stealing money." Phil graduated from OSU in 1935 with a degree in Business Administration and "an abiding distaste for business and administration of any kind, and especially for.'paper work'."
While at OSU, Phil joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps and after graduation he passed the test to become a flying cadet. In early 1936 he reported to Randolph Field, Texas, one of a class of 110. The training ended in 1937 and he was one of 20 to graduate. Cochran was then assigned to fly P-6 airplanes with the 33rd Pursuit Squadron at Langley, Virginia. He still had the rank of flying cadet because the Air Corps preferred to pay the cadet salary to that of a commissioned officer. He was finally given an Air Reserve 2nd Lieutenant's commission on June 20, 1937. His Regular Army commission wouldn't be granted until September 1939, three years and eight months after he graduated from flight training.
During his early years in the Air Corps, Cochran made a lifelong friend, John Alison, a quiet southerner dubbed "Father Alison" by his fellow flyers. Alison "was immediately attracted to this rollicking, picturesque Irishman, who loved jazz music, pretty girls and, above all, flying." In fact, Alison was taken under the wing of Phil's family and became the "sixth Cochran brother." Alison remembered that Cochran was "a colorful individual, a natural leader."
In 1941, Phil commanded the 65th Fighter Squadron, which was stationed at Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York. While there he developed an appreciation for New York City's nightlife. His next squadron flew P-40 "Warhhawk" fighters out of a makeshift airbase in Groton Connecticut. This assignment would figure largely in his future. The P-40 was the standout American fighter of the time. Cochran named his personal P-40 "Shillalah" after the ancient Irish war club, and went on to develop many of the maneuvers and tactics used by P-40 pilots. Many pilots would later refer to Cochran as "Mr. P-40."
His assignment at Groton would also lead to his becoming the model for a comic strip character. After the United States became involved in the war, cartoonist Milton Caniff desired to add some aviation elements to his famous adventure comic strip, "Terry and the Pirates." Caniff was a graduate of Ohio State and knew Phil through his older brother Paul. The artist arranged to visit Phil's squadron and study the pilots, aircraft and technical aspects of flying. During this association the two men grew "so close that Milton became one of the family." The Air Corps was a great supporter of Caniff's work; it was good for recruiting and "informed and entertained" and helped to fill "the avid hunger of people for information about the war."
Caniff developed the character Flip Corkin as a tribute to his friend Phil Cochran. The character was met with great response by the Air Corps and the public. Corkin was a handsome, dashing, intriguing, sympathetic character and was based largely on Caniff's observations of Phil. "The public relations people told Milton that.parents felt that if their boys were in the hands of characters like that Captain Corkin, that they felt relieved." The "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip was set in China, but the real Flip Corkin was in North Africa when the character made his debut. Cochran didn't get to see the strip immediately; he later recalled "Some guy showed it to me.It was about a month old." The first panel of the strip showed Corkin landing an airplane and commenting "After this war, I think I'll go back to Erie, Pennsylvania and just sit on the front porch for a long, long time." which was a quote of something that Phil had once told the cartoonist. The character would soon become a favorite with the American public and led Cochran to comment "about half the people I know call me Flip now." In fact, at his first meeting with Air Force commanding General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, the general greeted Cochran with "Hi Flip." If Cochran ever regretted becoming a national icon he didn't let on out of loyalty to his friend Caniff and the Air Force. He did comment that "At first it was fun, and then it was odd to live your life with everybody regarding you as that fellow in the funny paper."
Major Cochran was eager to get into the fighting but his excellence as a trainer of green pilots kept this from happening immediately. He would get his chance leading a group of P-40s and replacement pilots into North Africa onboard a British aircraft carrier. After landing against great odds in Morocco, Cochran found a situation of "confusion.blunders and defeats.dark days when the Americans were learning how to fight a war."
Cochran's group of replacements had no official designation so he called them the Joker Squadron after the playing card with no number. Cochran then took over and reorganized a P-40 squadron in Tunisia. It was here that Cochran's organizational skills, excellence at training and tactics would bring him to the attention of the Air Force brass. His unorthodox nature also flourished in this rugged guerilla war. He had successes with what he called "screwball ideas" including attaching a wire with a lead weight on the end to his P-40's tail wheel and flying low over German communication lines, ripping them to shreds (a trick he later successfully used against the Japanese in Burma). Cochran flew an amazing 47 missions in 30 days, including one where he single handedly destroyed a German general's headquarters at Kairouan, Tunisia with a well-placed 500-pound bomb. He shot down two Nazi planes but felt that, as a squadron leader, his job was not to seek out "kills" but to help his men get them. His training expertise helped the green American pilots and their out-classed P-40s defeat the Luftwaffe's veteran pilots and superior planes.
Cochran's "reputation as a tactical fighter genius and.trouble shooter for General Doolittle" led him to assist the newly-formed, all-African-American 99th Fighter Squadron, known as the Tuskegee Airmen. They had been sent to North Africa with a poor degree of training and Cochran gave them practical advice on fighting the Germans. Cochran did not believe in segregation of the military and advocated that the pilots be integrated into other squadrons. As the campaign in North Africa ended, Cochran was sent back to the United States to make a report to the Air Force staff at the Pentagon. He was also judged by the medical staff to have "cumulative fatigue" as he and many of the pilots in North Africa had been "used up pretty well" in the campaign.
Lt. Colonel Phil Cochran returned to the U.S. as a hero; the press called him "the real Flip Corkin," "the one-man war from Erie, PA" and because of his prematurely gray hair, "the gray eagle of the Tunisian Skies." He returned to Erie in June 1943, to find the city in complete Cochran mania. His face was plastered all over town on posters for a war bond campaign to buy "Fighters for Phil." Community leaders hoped this drive would sell 2 million dollars worth of bonds; Cochran's return to Erie spurred the citizens to purchase over 15 million dollars worth. Cochran needed rest and recuperation but he wouldn't get it on this visit to Erie. He was the center of media and public attention and children continually rang the doorbell of his parent's home asking for Phil's autograph, which he cheerily gave them. 1943 found four of the Cochran boys in the service; Paul was a naval intelligence officer stationed in Hawaii, Tom was a sergeant in the Air Force serving in Europe with the Glenn Miller Band and Joe was training to become a pilot with the Air Force. Despite being married with children, his brother John had tried to join the service but was rejected due to a childhood injury. John had begun his own trucking company, which was also deemed vital to the war effort. By years end Phil, now one of the youngest full colonels in the Army Air Force, had been featured in numerous major newspapers as well as The New Yorker and Life magazines. He was also about to embark on a very different phase of his career.
After the bond tour, Cochran was assigned to Mitchel Field to train pilots of the new P-47 "Thunderbolt" fighters. He hoped to be assigned a group of P-47s being sent into the air war in Europe. In fact, Cochran was preparing to leave for England to serve in a P-47 unit commanded by another Erie man, Brigadier General Francis H. "Butch" Griswold, when he got a telegram to report to the Chief of the Air Force, General Hap Arnold. Cochran immediately assumed that he was in big trouble. He did not know it at the time, but his long-time friend John Alison had also been asked to report to Arnold.
Gen. Arnold was planning a completely new kind of outfit for the Air Force and he was looking for proven, unorthodox men leaders to head the unit. The new unit was to provide aerial support for the British invasion of Burma. Neither Cochran nor Alison wanted anything to do with the project; they wanted to command fighter plane outfits. Arnold would not budge and told both men to get to work on the secret operation, initially called Project 9. Cochran and Alison decided to be co-commanders of the unit but this proved difficult to get past the Air Force hierarchy and eventually Cochran became the commander because he was a few months senior of Alison.
The two men quickly began to assemble what would eventually be known as the 1st Air Commandos. This unit had no precedent in the Air Force; it combined fighters, bombers, gliders, transports, light planes, helicopters and aviation engineers. By the end of 1943 they were assembling in India, preparing to invade Burma. They operated with British General Orde Wingate and his commando force, the "Chindits." In what was known as "Operation Thursday" the 1st Air Commandos used transport planes and gliders to move 9,000 Chindits and 1,300 animals to jungle airstrips 165 miles behind enemy lines. The Air Commandos provided air support, supplies and medical evacuation for the Chindits. The Air Commandos and Chindits drove the Japanese from Burma and protected India from attack.
After the success of this operation, Cochran was ordered to Europe where Gen. Arnold hoped the aerial invasion concept could be used against the Germans. Nazi Germany collapsed before these plans could be put into operation. In August of 1945, Cochran returned to Erie, and, true to his word, took it easy on the family's front porch.
In November 1946, Col. Philip G. Cochran resigned from the Army Air Force after ten years of service. He was awarded a number of decorations including the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Soldier's Medal, the Air Medal, the Bronze Star, the British Distinguished Service Order and the French Croix de Guerre.
His postwar work included stints in the aviation industry and directing aviation scenes for Howard Hughes' movie "Jet Pilot." Cochran moved in fast company, befriending the likes of Frank Sinatra and dating a number of movie stars including Betty White. He inspired the character General Philerie in the Milton Caniff comic strip "Steve Canyon."
In 1952 he returned to Erie to work for Lyons Transportation Lines, the trucking company founded by his brother John. Phil became chairman of the board of Lyons in 1966. He was involved in local causes including Gannon College and the PA Heart Fund. He continued to be an avid horseman and breeder of racehorses. He died on August 25, 1979 while horseback riding. The Air Force Special Operations Command honored Cochran by naming their headquarters building at Hurlburt Field, Florida for him in 1994. A Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission historical marker was dedicated in his honor on Veteran's Day, 2001 near the Erie County World War II Memorial on State Street.
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