One of the most abundantly decorated flyers in the American forces is Staff Sgt. Schiller Cohen, a 23-year old Jewish graduate of the New York City College, the Jewish Welfare Board reported today. Sergeant Cohen is the holder of 13 decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and ten Oak Leaf Clusters.
A tail gunner, waist gunner, and photographer aboard a B-17, Sergeant Cohen was with the first American aircraft to bomb Nazi-held Europe, flew with the first Fortresses to attack enemy territory in North Africa, and participated in the opening aerial assault on Italy. Altogether, he has been on 52 bombing missions, having to his credit 254 hours of air combat.
It was on the initial onset against the ex-Duce’s domain, with Palermo as the target, that Sergeant Cohen encountered his most searing experience. He was in the tail gun position and his plane, the Stinky, was at a high altitude. It was very cold. Approaching the coast of Sicily, he “got ready for business.” Suddenly it came, as he was looking out the window. “All at once,” he recalls, “as if they’d appeared out of a cloud, I saw 50 fighters coming at us. One minute they weren’t there — the next they were right on us, firing away.”
The Fortress had no fighter escort, which meant that it was up to the gunners to smash the enemy craft down. “We pumped plenty of lead. I saw one ME 109 near my plane’s tail begin to smoke, but I didn’t stop to watch it go down. There was too much to do. The enemy fighters kept with us all the way to the target. Every time they came into us we let them have it, thick and fast, and they peeled off. We reached our target and started our runs. Suddenly 30 more fighters came up. The air was positively thick with them. But our guns were going so furiously that they couldn’t get close to us without having their heads blasted off. We laid our eggs. Pictures later showed that the raid was one of the most successful of the war.”
JEWISH LIEUTENANT HOLDS 11 DECORATIONS; TROY JEW DECORATED EIGHT TIMES
Lt. Pincus Philip Taback, 24, of Newark, N. J., is not far behind Sergeant Schiller, having been awarded 11 medals. He hold the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and nine Oak Leaf Clusters. A P-38 Lightning pilot, Lieutenant Taback, who has been serving on the North African front, has been on 50 missions. Home on furlough, Lieutenant Taback has been in service more than two and a half years. He is a graduate of Weequahic High School and belongs to the Newark Hebrew Club.
Lt. Malcolm A. Hormats, 24, of Troy, N. Y., who has been hailed by the daily press of that city as “Troy’s outstanding hero of the war,” is another multidecorated American Jewish serviceman, having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Distinguished Flying Medallion (a British honor), the Air Medal, and five Oak Leaf Clusters, eight in all.
The achievement which earned Lieutenant Hormats the DFC took place in the air over Tunisia, when “alone and unaided” he attacked a flight of enemy planes, dispersed them, and saved the bombers he had been assigned to protect. It was recalled that when Hormats sought to enlist in the Army Air Forces early in 1941, he was rejected for a defect of his left eye. He then made his way to Canada, got into the R.C.A.F. and became a Spitfire pilot.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
