Senior Class: Shot down over Germany
Brainerd resident recalls when he became a POW
It was a life experience 85-year-old Charlie Cooper will never forget - an experience most Americans back in the 1940s feared, and today most could not fathom.
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Charlie Cooper
Age: 85. Home: Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., but been in Brainerd since 1978.
What brought you to Minnesota: "A big influence for me to transfer to the Midwest was the book 'State Fair,' which was about the Iowa State Fair."
Miss about New York: "Nothing. New York is New York and it's alive all the time. I went to many stage shows there and have seen many greats like Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra."
Where did you meet your wife?: "I met Geneva in Mitchell, S.D. She was 16 and I was 18. My tail gunner told me I had to go to town to meet this girl ... and I met another girl. Geneva worked in the ice cream parlor we were at. We didn't get together a lot because I was in combat. Our courtship was mostly in letters."
Greatest achievement in life: "I traveled a lot in the early 60s and talked about anti-Communist tactics to different clubs and organizations. I did this because I got respect from it."
Favorite wine: "At a time it was an Australia wine that was rated the second best in the world."
Wine crime: "The worst crime of wines is drinking snobs. I tell people to enjoy their wine no matter who they are and to not let an idiot fool them."
"It was a lousy experience," Cooper said of becoming a prisoner of war in World War II after the B-17 aircraft was shot down on March 23, 1944 in Dortmund, Germany. "I don't have any nightmares about it. However, every night since then when I go to bed I go through all of this in my head. I'll never forget it.
"It was unbelievable when we got out (of the prison camps). I was so happy to be alive. It was amazing."
Brainerd resident Charlie Cooper and his crew posed next to the B-17 aircraft that was shot down during World War II on March 23, 1944, in Germany. Cooper was in the back row on the right without a hat on. Cooper (right) held a B-17replica of what he was on in World War II that was shot down in Dortmund, Germany.
Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
While sitting at the kitchen table in his south Brainerd home, Cooper went through all of his war memorabilia this summer. Cooper kept all the history in a box and manilla envelopes that his mother saved for him for years.
Items included two Purple Hearts and other medals; a handful of telegrams the Germans and the American military sent to his parents about his whereabouts and his condition; letters he sent to his loved ones and letters they sent to him; and his military logbook that showed that Cooper went on eight missions, with the eighth mission where he was missing In action.
Cooper and his crew posed next to the B-17 aircraft that was shot down during World War II on March 23, 1944, in Germany. Cooper was in the back row on the right without a hat on. Cooper (right) held a B-17replica of what he was on in World War II that was shot down in Dortmund, Germany.
Cooper, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., said he enlisted in the Army on his 18th birthday and he went to war when he was 19. Cooper, who was a staff sergeant, was a ball turret gunner. Cooper had to sit in a Plexiglas sphere set into the bottom of the aircraft, where he used machine guns to fight the enemy.
Cooper said the ball turret gunner was one of the most dangerous jobs and he was the youngest man on the crew. Cooper said it was very cold in the sphere, at times it was 40 below zero. Cooper said he had to wear three pairs of gloves and an electric heated suit.
Cooper earned several medals, including two Purple Hearts for his service in World War II.
"It was miserable, but I couldn't wait to get out there," he said.
Cooper said his crew was on their way home when the aircraft was shot down. Cooper said the flak hit the aircraft and hit the No. 2 engine. Cooper said the pilot yelled down to him to inform the crew on what engine was hit.
Charlie Cooper displayed the bracelet he wore when he was a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II. His prison number was 3704.
"I said, 'Sally, the whole dang wing is on fire,'" Cooper said. "I went down holding the rip cord ... I must have dropped 3,000 feet, I couldn't see the clouds. The most frightening thing was I pulled the rip cord and nothing happened. I ended up pulling it out myself and I said to myself to hang in there and said thank you to God. I landed on Main Street in Dortmund and there were 15-18 people waiting for me.
"There was this old man, who was as frightened as I was. He was shaking holding a gun at me. The people tore my helmet off and I must have looked like I was from Mars with all my gear on, the goggles and face mask. They were all kicking me, until they saw that I was a kid. Their attitude changed and they stopped."
Cooper said a vehicle pulled up with officers who then took him away. Cooper said he broke his leg in the fall and the Germans took him to a civilian hospital for treatment.
"I passed out when they were putting the cast made out of paper on and I woke up in jail," said Cooper. "That was the only time I saw a doctor in the 15 months that I was in the prison camp."
Charlie Cooper went through his World War II memorabilia at his Brainerd home.
Cooper said he was taken to the main interrogation center in Frankfurt, Germany. He said he was questioned for a day and a half about his mission, but he told them he didn't know anything.
Cooper said a German captain, who spoke English, mentioned his mother's name, which is German and asked him, "Why are you fighting against your own people?" Cooper said he told them "because they sent me here and I'm not happy to be here." Cooper said the captain then told him that he'd be in Germany for quite awhile and his heart sank.
Cooper and 40 other men, including the men in his crew who were later captured, were then transported on tight-fitting boxcars known as 40-and-8s, for six days to the prison camp called Stalag-Luft 1, a camp in northeast Germany that was a fourth-mile from the Baltic Sea.
"They weren't cruel, they just ignored you," said Cooper on how the Germans treated the prisoners. "It didn't pay to complain because they wouldn't listen. We had no heat, no adequate food and a wooden frame bed with a burlap bag with wood shavings in it and a little blanket. We were freezing."
Cooper said there were 16 men in one room who were given one small loaf of black bread a day to share. Cooper said the men would slice the bread evenly into 32 slices so each man would receive two slices.
Cooper said the men also received raw potatoes, turnips and cabbage in small amounts and they'd sporadically receive food from the Red Cross that included powdered milk and coffee, tuna, crackers and sugar.
"We went months without any food from the Red Cross," said Cooper. "When it did come we'd get 11 pounds that would last one week. The Germans punctured the cans before they'd give them to us."
Cooper said the Germans allowed the prisoners to write two letters a month that he'd write to his parents and his girlfriend, who he later married, Geneva Griffith.
"They didn't even know I was alive until October," Cooper said, which was about seven months after being missing In action. "It took months for the letters to get there. I asked them to send a toothbrush. I couldn't brush my teeth for seven months."
Cooper said during the war the International Red Cross sent his parents a few Western Union telegrams, some which were intercepted by the Germans.
Cooper said the crew was freed from the camp in May of 1945. Cooper said a few days before their release the prisoners could hear the battles going on. They heard that the Russians were coming and the Germans put out a white flag by the camp and fled. Cooper said once they learned the soldiers left they left camp and traveled to a nearby town and the Americans sent airplanes to retrieve them and they were flown to France. Cooper said they stayed in France for awhile and then they went home during the summer of 1945.
Cooper said Bob Williams, Matthew McGuire and himself are the only ones on the crew who are still alive today.
Cooper married Geneva in 1946 in New York and they had one son they named Charlie, who lives in Wisconsin. The couple was married for 60 years before Geneva died in 2006.
Cooper was a salesman most of his life after getting back home from war. He sold products for Nabisco for 20 years in New York and then he was transferred to Montevideo where he worked for 11 years.
Cooper changed jobs and became a liquor salesman and worked on the Iron Range from 1968-78. Then he went out of the business and bought a bar in Pillager and called it Charlie's Bar. He ran the bar for about nine years.
Cooper said his next adventure came when Bob Rohlfing of Rohlfing Beverage Inc. in Brainerd hired him to help teach his employees how to be wine salespeople. Cooper said he did this for 10 years and then retired when he was 76.
"To this day he still sends me a check every week," said Cooper. "He calls me his ambassador ... Liquor was my specialty and Phillips got into wine so I had the background. It was difficult teaching beer salesmen about wine. It was a transition. We held many wine tastings ... We had many excellent wines."
Cooper said he established wine lists at lakes area restaurants, including Sherwood Forest. Cooper said one year the restaurant sold more wine than spirits, which is unheard of.
Cooper said one of his interests has always been flying. Cooper said he earned his pilot's license and his commercial pilot's license and he wanted to get a job at the airline.
"I never got into it," said Cooper. "After the war the airline had a lot of requirements in order to work for them. You had to have 2,000 hours of multiple engine time in and I didn't. By the time I was eligible I was too old. I always regreted not getting into flying."
Cooper was a member of a flying club and at one time and the club owned four airplanes and a hanger. However, he has since had to sell his interest in it.
Cooper sat on the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport Commission for 17 years.
"I was there when we hired Steve Sievek (the airport manager)," said Cooper. "He is a good guy."
Cooper today is enjoying life and he said when he dies he plans to join his wife, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.