USAAF veterans reunite after 63 years

Antipodean Andy · Jan 26, 2009

Memories flow as World War II veterans, both Inland residents, reunite after 63 years | San Bernardino County | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

From hedge-hopping in an airplane to pilfered Scotch, memories flowed Thursday as two World War II veterans were reunited after 63 years.

John Leonard Coogan, 89, hadn't seen Art Froehlich, 88, since the two served in the same Air Force squadron stationed near Rheims, France.

"How are you?" Froehlich said, shaking Coogan's hand and then embracing him.

"I'm still here," Coogan said.

The same cannot be said for most of their fellow airmen.

"Art Hirsch is gone," Coogan said. "I think Walt Linnen has passed away. Joe is gone. Doc is still alive. Doc Galvan was our squadron doctor."

The meeting of Coogan and Froehlich was a bit of happenstance. Both have kept in touch with a fellow airman who lives on the East Coast but found out only recently they live just a few miles apart -- Coogan in Hemet, Froehlich in Sun City.

Coogan is a Riverside native and graduated from Poly High School in 1938. He worked at Warren Anderson Ford before enlisting in the Air Force at March Air Base in 1940. Froehlich grew up in Illinois and moved to Sun City in 2000.

During their service, Coogan was a supply officer while Froehlich, although he had a civilian pilot's license, was a mechanic. Their squadron trained stateside in Shreveport, La.

The barracks were right next to the airport flight line, Coogan said.

"One of those (planes) coming back, he crashed and it caught fire," Coogan said. "I remember, you could hear those men inside of the plane, beating on the side. But no one could get to them because of the fire."

Coogan recalled when the squadron first landed in England at Liverpool. They got off the ship in the middle of an air raid.

"It was pitch black," he said. "We had to walk up this narrow gangplank with no railing on the side. If you took a wrong step, you'd go down. There were bombs going off all over."

They were stationed in a small town outside of Redding.

Sun City's Froehlich, 88, right, says he has a host of World War II memorabilia. Coogan, 89, of Hemet, said his mementos were lost to Hurricane Andrew when he lived in Florida.
Coogan and Froehlich didn't work together during the day, nor did they socialize together after hours. But among 100-plus men, they knew one another, and their memories of events within their squadron were plentiful.

"I remember you guys coming back from Holland one time with a lot of Scotch," Coogan says. "It was hard to get that in England."

"We didn't get to drink it," Froehlich lamented. "I don't know who got it."

Sixty-three years later, Coogan was ready to confess.

"I got some of it," he said.

Neither man was involved in the D-Day invasion itself, but the day made a lasting impression anyway.

"I know you remember D-Day," Coogan said to Froehlich, "with all that aircraft in the air. From horizon to horizon, there was nothing but aircraft."

Froehlich remembered one particularly ironic situation.

"Remember Needleman?" he asked Coogan. "They put him in charge of guarding the (German) prisoners. He was Jewish. They told the prisoners, 'You'd better watch out.' "

Froehlich said he still has a host of memorabilia from his war days.

"I have a drawer full of stuff from that time," he said.

"My stuff like that got lost in Hurricane Andrew," Coogan said, recalling the time he lived in Florida.

The men both had surprisingly busy schedules and found they couldn't meet to go through Froehlich's material until the first week in February. But they made a date.
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