September 4, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Merian C. Cooper never settled for an ordinary life. Before he created King Kong, he was chasing stories as a journalist, flying combat missions in two world wars, and helping to shape the rise of the American movie industry. By the time audiences watched a giant gorilla climb the Empire State Building in 1933, Cooper had already lived through adventures as thrilling as any he put on film. As part of our ongoing Hollywood Goes to War series, Roger McGrath shares the story of the pilot, producer, and dreamer whose life blurred the line between classic adventure movies and history itself.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we're back with our American Stories. And here to
tell another Hollywood goes to War's story is Roger McGrath.
He's the author of Gunfighters, Holliman Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier.
He's also a US Marine and former history professor at UCLA.
Doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and
(00:32):
is a regular contributor for US Here at our American Stories,
Here's McGrath. Marian C.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Cooper was one of Hollywood's most important figures in its
golden age. He wrose the great prominence in nineteen thirty
three when he co wrote, directed, and produced the blockbuster
King Kong. Before he retired, he had six credits for directing,
nineteen for writing, and sixty eight for producing. You worked
(01:01):
closely with John Ford, producing such Ford classics as Ford Apache,
She wore a yellow ribbon, Rio Grande, wagon Master, a
Quiet Man, and the Searchers. What is generally not known
about Marion Cooper is his service as a US Army
(01:22):
pilot in World War One, and then as the organizer
of the cosc Usco Squadron, a group of American pilots
who came to Poland's aid and flew with great distinction
in the Polish Russian War of nineteen twenty. Marion Cooper
is born in eighteen ninety three in Jacksonville, Florida, the
(01:44):
son of a prominent attorney, Cooper Lyne goes back to
the colonial erape in southeastern Georgia, rising of prominence during
the Revolutionary War. Is John Cooper, Marion's great great grandfather,
who serves as a colonel alongside Kasmir Pulaski, the Polish
(02:06):
cavalry commander. After a meeting with Ben Franklin in Paris
in seventeen seventy six, Pulaski sails to America and is
soon reorganizing and commanding the Continental Army's cavalry regiments. Though
his imperious manner causes controversy, the aristocratic Pulaski serves with
(02:28):
distinction in several battles, both before and after, spending the
winner of seventeen seventy seven to seventeen seventy eight with
Washington at Valley Forge. While leaving a charge during the
Battle of Savannah in May seventeen seventy nine, Pulaski is
grievously wounded by British grape shot Colonel John Cooper carries
(02:53):
Pulaski from the battlefield, and, according to family lore, is
at Pulaski's side when the cavalry commander dies two days later.
Kasmir Pulaski becomes a hero to Americans, including Mirian Cooper, when,
as a young boy, his told stories of his great
(03:13):
great grandfather and the Polish general. The young boy's imagination
is also fired by hearing of the exploits of his
great uncle, Mirian R. Cooper, who joins the second Florida
Infantry of the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen, fights, heroically,
suffers several wounds, and is commissioned as a captain at
(03:36):
age twenty. Moreover, the young Cooper is a voracious reader
of tales of adventure, in particular Paul du shallouse Explorations
and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. A thrilling account of Shalloo's
hunt for gorillas in the forests of the uncharted Crystal Mountains.
(03:59):
Shallous To description of two native women being carried off
by girls leaves a lasting impression on Cooper. It isn't
by accident that nineteen thirty three, Cooper co writes, directs,
and produces King Kong. Cooper's thoughts of adventure turtans skyward when,
at age ten in nineteen three, the Florida Boy reads
(04:22):
of the Ripe Brother's twelve second flight at Kittyhawk, North Carolina.
He vows that one day he will fly her plans.
Upon graduating from the Lawrenceville Prep School in New Jersey,
Cooper receives an appointment to the United States Naval Academy.
He performs well both academically and athletically, but Cooper has
(04:46):
trouble controlling his wild nature and receives demerits for infractions
of military discipline. His fondness for strong drink gets him
thrown into the brig during December teen fourteen, and the
academy begins to dismissal proceedings. Cooper is only one semester
(05:07):
shy of graduation, and he can contest the proceedings, but
he feels he has brought dishonor upon himself and his family,
and thinks it best for all if he leaves. Too
embarrassed to return home, Cooper sails to Europe as a
seaman aboard a freighter. He thinks of enlistening to fly
(05:28):
for Britain. Or France, but passport problems interfere. He returns
to the United States and works at various jobs, including
writing for the Minneapolis Daily News in the Saint Louis
Post Dispatch. He stops drinking entirely and excels at his jobs,
(05:49):
but he does begin smoking a pipe. In a letter
to his father, he says, of his pipe, he soothes
many many a hatred in many a regret. Whenever I
have wanted a good stiff drink, the old Corn Cob
has always stuck by me and taken the place of
John Barleycorn. In nineteen sixteen, Cooper joins the Georgia National
(06:13):
Guard and quickly finds himself on the Mexican border with
General George black Jack Pershing. Cooper thinks he will soon
be pursuing Pancho Villa deep inside Mexico, but his duties
are confined to patrolling the border. After several months and
unlimited action, Cooper gets orders to the Military Aeronautics School
(06:35):
in Atlanta. After a year of rigorous training, Cooper graduates
first in his class of one hundred and fifty cadets.
The commandant of the school sends a telegram to Washington
recommending the newly minted pilot Miria and Cooper for service overseas,
saying he is the best man in every respect who
(06:58):
has yet entered this school. Lieutenant Cooper is in France
by October nineteen seventeen, but is in for several more
months of training before being assigned to the twentieth Aerosquadron.
Injuries in a crash landing in months of heavy rains
and fog to lay Cooper's first combat flights until September
(07:23):
nineteen eighteen, which occurred during the Battle of San Miel.
Cooper's flying thed Havevelin IV Liberty a powerful and fairly
maneuverable plane, but when loaded with a pilot, a Bamedeer ordnance,
and a full tank of gas, it is considerably slower
(07:44):
than the German Fokker D seven. Moreover, the Liberty's gas
tank is particularly vulnerable the enemy fire, which earns the
plane the nickname Flaming Coffin. Lieutenant Cooper flies both bombing
and reconnaissance missions. His luck holds until a bombing mission
(08:05):
in late September during the Meuse Argonne offensive. His flight
of Davlins is jumped by two groups of Fowkers Cooper
maneuvers is playing brilliantly, and he and his bombited are
in Leonard shoot down three Fockers before his own plane
is riddled with bullets and set of blaze. Cooper thinks
(08:26):
of bailing out, but he decides to stick with the
plane because Leonard is wounded and only semi conscious in
the rear seat.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And you've been listening to the story of Mary and C. Cooper,
and he's the man who gave us King Kong. And
that's in nineteen thirty three. When people saw this movie,
they ran out of the theater. You can still watch
it today and it's still a remarkable piece of cinema.
And also, my goodness producing the classic John Ford movies
like The Searchers or A Quiet Man or Rio Grand
(08:56):
Always in the lineage of this family, there was war service.
When we come back more of Marian C. Cooper's story,
it's a stem winder here on our American story, and
(09:39):
we continue with our American stories. Marion Cooper's airplane is
on fire after getting riddled with bullets and a dogfight
against two German planes in World War One. He thinks
of bailing out, but decides to stick with the plane
because his bombadier ed Leonard is wounded and only semi
conscious in the rear seat. Let's return to Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
With badly burned hands and using only his elbows and
knees to control the stick, Cooper crash lands the plane
in a field. By the time Cooper and Leonard extract
themselves from the wreckage, a German pilot who is one
of those in the air duel, also lands in the field.
As described by Cooper, the handsome and middle bedecked pilot
(10:29):
strides over to the wounded Americans, salutes them and renders aid.
German infantry soon arrive and Cooper and Leonard are taken
to a German field hospital for treatment. German doctors save
Cooper's hands in Leonard's life. Cooper and Leonard are listed
as MIA until the Red Cross sends word early in
(10:53):
November that they are alive and recovering from their wounds
in a German hospital. The armises is signed a week
later and Cooper enlighted, are soon repatriated. Once back in
France and now a captain, Cooper volunteers for a humanitarian
missioned Poland. The Poles are starving their condition made even
(11:16):
worse by a Russian Bolshevik invasion. World War One may
be over, but the Polish Russian War is just beginning.
Cooper's organization of truck convoys with tons of food and
medical supplies endears him to the Poles, especially in East Galatia,
(11:37):
now part of Ukraine. However, he longs to join the
Polls in fighting the Russian Bolsheviks, who are able to
send more than seven hundred thousand troops into Poland. After
defeating their white Russian foes, Cooper personally contacts Poland's Head
of State, Marshall Joseph Polutsky, asking permission to organize a
(12:03):
squadron of American pilots to fight alongside the Poles and
repay the American debt oude to Poland for the services
of Kashmir Pulaski and Tadou's Kosciusko, another Polish nobleman who
served in the Continental Army with distinction. With Marshall Polutsky's approval,
(12:26):
Cooper begins recruiting American pilots. The first to join is
Colonel Cedric Errol Fauntleroy, a tall Mississippian who flew in
dy Rickerbocker's famed Squadron. Cooper wants a squadron named in
honor of Pulaski, but Fontleroy wants Koskiusko. Since Fount Lrooy
(12:47):
is the ranking officer, the unit becomes the Cosciusko Squadron.
In addition to Captain Cooper and Colonel Fontleroy, the founding
members of the squadron include Captain A. H. Kelly of Virginia,
Captain Ed Corsi of New York, Lieutenants Ed Noble and
(13:08):
EP Graves of Massachusetts, Lieutenant GARL. Clark of Oklahoma, Lieutenant
Ken Shrewsbared Virginia, Lieutenant Elliot Chess of Texas, and Lieutenant
George Crawford of Delaware. Certainly across section of America, many
more American volunteers will later join the squadron. By January
(13:33):
nineteen twenty, the squadron is in action, contributing significantly to
turning the tide of battle against the Russians. Captain Cooper's
in combat whenever weather permits, often flying low altitude missions
against the Cossack cavalry, which is attempting to sweep through
eastern Poland and into Warsaw. The American pilot's employ tactics
(13:56):
they learned in the World War One battles of San
miel And are gone. First, they would fly over the
Cossack columns at six hundred feet above the ground and
drop their bombs by hand. Then they would dive down
to only a few dozen feet above the ground and
fire their machine guns at the now fleeing Cossacks. These
(14:17):
bombing and strafing attacks are devastating to the Cossack cavalry,
but also take a toll on American pilots. Flying at
such low altitudes, particularly on the strafing runs, means small
arms can bring down the plane. Cooper also flies several
missions to Kiev, where he has a beautiful Polish girlfriend.
(14:40):
He later recalled the day I flew down the street
in Kiev with a wing almost shot off so I
could wave to my beautiful, luscious blonde and have her
blow a kiss at me. And if that wasn't worth
risking your life for, I don't know what is, particularly
as I had a date with that night. On July thirteenth,
(15:04):
Cooper is strafing Cossack cavalry When bullets ripped through his
gas tank and his engine begins to sputter. He switches
towards the reserve tank, but no luck. As his plane
is gliding to the earth, he watches Cossacks galloping their
horses to catch up with him. His dead stick landing
(15:25):
is smooth, but then his wheels hit a ditch and
the plain ground loops. Cooper is thrown out of the
cockpit and hits the ground with a thud. He struggles
to his feet, walks a few steps, then passes out.
Cooper regains consciousness with the help of a kick from
the boot of a dismounted Cossack. Cooper sees he's surrounded
(15:48):
by the notorious rushing cavalrymen. Cooper later says they look
like wild dogs jumping after a piece of raw meat.
He endures three days of beatings and whippings before arriving
at the headquarters of the Cossack cavalry commander, General Simeon Boudini.
Cooper thinks he will be interrogated and executed, but a
(16:12):
surprise to learn Boudini has a fondness for the Cosciusko pilots.
A few weeks earlier, the pilots could have killed Boudini
while he was riding in a train. However, the Americans
saw his wife was with him and decided to fly
by without attacking. Boudhini offers Cooper a job as a
(16:34):
fine instructor for the Bolsheviks, but Cooper will have none
of it and is sent to a prison near Moscow.
Malnutrition and disease take the lives of prisoners week by week,
and for various reasons. Prisoners are occasionally lined up against
a wall and shot. Cooper is chosen for the wall
(16:55):
three times, but each time his execution is called off.
During the spring of nineteen twenty one, he and two
of his fellow prisoners, both Polish lieutenants, swear an oath
to each other that they will attempt to escape or
die trying. Days later, when they are among a group
(17:16):
of prisoners taken into a forest to chop wood, Cooper
and the Polish officers slip away, moving rapidly through the forest,
and they have the good fortune to come upon a
rail line and leap, unseen aboard a freight train headed west.
The train takes them much of the way to the
Latvian border, but then its travel on foot, only by
(17:40):
night and only off the beaten path. At one point,
Cooper has to cut the throat of a Russian soldier
on patrol. When Cooper reaches Warsaw, he is greeted as
a conquering hero. Cooper says all the Coscuesco Squadron did
was nothing more than payback for the contributions of Pulaski
(18:02):
and Kosciusko to America's freedom in the American Revolution. Once
back in the United States, Cooper goes to work as
a reporter for the New York Times. After six months, though,
he's able to join an expedition led by a wealthy
explorer from California, Edward Salisbury, that is sailing to far
(18:25):
off places in search of adventure. This is something Cooper
has dreamed of since he was a little kid. The
expedition takes Cooper to the most remote islands of the
Southwest Pacific and to those of the Indian Ocean islands
of head honting human sacrifice in cannibalism. Out of the
(18:47):
expedition comes hundreds of photographs and hundreds of feet of film,
which has turned into a documentary. Also coming out of
the expedition is a book, The See Gypsy, written by
Mirian Cooper. The documentary and the book take Salisbury and
Cooper to Hollywood. Cooper is soon writing, directing, or producing
(19:11):
some of the best movies to ever come out of Hollywood.
People often say Hollywood doesn't make movies like they used to.
It may be because Hollywood doesn't have men like Mirian
Cooper anymore.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And a terrific job on The storytelling is always by
Greg Hangler and a special thanks to Roger McGrath. We
love the Hollywood Goes to War series, and my goodness,
so many great men served when they didn't have to.
There were many other ways they could have gone about
helping the effort, war bonds and the like, people like
(19:50):
John Ford, Frank Camper, John Houston, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable,
Gable at the height of his career, doing this over
and over again. The story of maryon Cooper here on
our American Story
Speaker 2 (20:17):
M
And we're back with our American Stories. And here to
tell another Hollywood goes to War's story is Roger McGrath.
He's the author of Gunfighters, Holliman Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier.
He's also a US Marine and former history professor at UCLA.
Doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and
(00:32):
is a regular contributor for US Here at our American Stories,
Here's McGrath. Marian C.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Cooper was one of Hollywood's most important figures in its
golden age. He wrose the great prominence in nineteen thirty
three when he co wrote, directed, and produced the blockbuster
King Kong. Before he retired, he had six credits for directing,
nineteen for writing, and sixty eight for producing. You worked
(01:01):
closely with John Ford, producing such Ford classics as Ford Apache,
She wore a yellow ribbon, Rio Grande, wagon Master, a
Quiet Man, and the Searchers. What is generally not known
about Marion Cooper is his service as a US Army
(01:22):
pilot in World War One, and then as the organizer
of the cosc Usco Squadron, a group of American pilots
who came to Poland's aid and flew with great distinction
in the Polish Russian War of nineteen twenty. Marion Cooper
is born in eighteen ninety three in Jacksonville, Florida, the
(01:44):
son of a prominent attorney, Cooper Lyne goes back to
the colonial erape in southeastern Georgia, rising of prominence during
the Revolutionary War. Is John Cooper, Marion's great great grandfather,
who serves as a colonel alongside Kasmir Pulaski, the Polish
(02:06):
cavalry commander. After a meeting with Ben Franklin in Paris
in seventeen seventy six, Pulaski sails to America and is
soon reorganizing and commanding the Continental Army's cavalry regiments. Though
his imperious manner causes controversy, the aristocratic Pulaski serves with
(02:28):
distinction in several battles, both before and after, spending the
winner of seventeen seventy seven to seventeen seventy eight with
Washington at Valley Forge. While leaving a charge during the
Battle of Savannah in May seventeen seventy nine, Pulaski is
grievously wounded by British grape shot Colonel John Cooper carries
(02:53):
Pulaski from the battlefield, and, according to family lore, is
at Pulaski's side when the cavalry commander dies two days later.
Kasmir Pulaski becomes a hero to Americans, including Mirian Cooper, when,
as a young boy, his told stories of his great
(03:13):
great grandfather and the Polish general. The young boy's imagination
is also fired by hearing of the exploits of his
great uncle, Mirian R. Cooper, who joins the second Florida
Infantry of the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen, fights, heroically,
suffers several wounds, and is commissioned as a captain at
(03:36):
age twenty. Moreover, the young Cooper is a voracious reader
of tales of adventure, in particular Paul du shallouse Explorations
and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. A thrilling account of Shalloo's
hunt for gorillas in the forests of the uncharted Crystal Mountains.
(03:59):
Shallous To description of two native women being carried off
by girls leaves a lasting impression on Cooper. It isn't
by accident that nineteen thirty three, Cooper co writes, directs,
and produces King Kong. Cooper's thoughts of adventure turtans skyward when,
at age ten in nineteen three, the Florida Boy reads
(04:22):
of the Ripe Brother's twelve second flight at Kittyhawk, North Carolina.
He vows that one day he will fly her plans.
Upon graduating from the Lawrenceville Prep School in New Jersey,
Cooper receives an appointment to the United States Naval Academy.
He performs well both academically and athletically, but Cooper has
(04:46):
trouble controlling his wild nature and receives demerits for infractions
of military discipline. His fondness for strong drink gets him
thrown into the brig during December teen fourteen, and the
academy begins to dismissal proceedings. Cooper is only one semester
(05:07):
shy of graduation, and he can contest the proceedings, but
he feels he has brought dishonor upon himself and his family,
and thinks it best for all if he leaves. Too
embarrassed to return home, Cooper sails to Europe as a
seaman aboard a freighter. He thinks of enlistening to fly
(05:28):
for Britain. Or France, but passport problems interfere. He returns
to the United States and works at various jobs, including
writing for the Minneapolis Daily News in the Saint Louis
Post Dispatch. He stops drinking entirely and excels at his jobs,
(05:49):
but he does begin smoking a pipe. In a letter
to his father, he says, of his pipe, he soothes
many many a hatred in many a regret. Whenever I
have wanted a good stiff drink, the old Corn Cob
has always stuck by me and taken the place of
John Barleycorn. In nineteen sixteen, Cooper joins the Georgia National
(06:13):
Guard and quickly finds himself on the Mexican border with
General George black Jack Pershing. Cooper thinks he will soon
be pursuing Pancho Villa deep inside Mexico, but his duties
are confined to patrolling the border. After several months and
unlimited action, Cooper gets orders to the Military Aeronautics School
(06:35):
in Atlanta. After a year of rigorous training, Cooper graduates
first in his class of one hundred and fifty cadets.
The commandant of the school sends a telegram to Washington
recommending the newly minted pilot Miria and Cooper for service overseas,
saying he is the best man in every respect who
(06:58):
has yet entered this school. Lieutenant Cooper is in France
by October nineteen seventeen, but is in for several more
months of training before being assigned to the twentieth Aerosquadron.
Injuries in a crash landing in months of heavy rains
and fog to lay Cooper's first combat flights until September
(07:23):
nineteen eighteen, which occurred during the Battle of San Miel.
Cooper's flying thed Havevelin IV Liberty a powerful and fairly
maneuverable plane, but when loaded with a pilot, a Bamedeer ordnance,
and a full tank of gas, it is considerably slower
(07:44):
than the German Fokker D seven. Moreover, the Liberty's gas
tank is particularly vulnerable the enemy fire, which earns the
plane the nickname Flaming Coffin. Lieutenant Cooper flies both bombing
and reconnaissance missions. His luck holds until a bombing mission
(08:05):
in late September during the Meuse Argonne offensive. His flight
of Davlins is jumped by two groups of Fowkers Cooper
maneuvers is playing brilliantly, and he and his bombited are
in Leonard shoot down three Fockers before his own plane
is riddled with bullets and set of blaze. Cooper thinks
(08:26):
of bailing out, but he decides to stick with the
plane because Leonard is wounded and only semi conscious in
the rear seat.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And you've been listening to the story of Mary and C. Cooper,
and he's the man who gave us King Kong. And
that's in nineteen thirty three. When people saw this movie,
they ran out of the theater. You can still watch
it today and it's still a remarkable piece of cinema.
And also, my goodness producing the classic John Ford movies
like The Searchers or A Quiet Man or Rio Grand
(08:56):
Always in the lineage of this family, there was war service.
When we come back more of Marian C. Cooper's story,
it's a stem winder here on our American story, and
(09:39):
we continue with our American stories. Marion Cooper's airplane is
on fire after getting riddled with bullets and a dogfight
against two German planes in World War One. He thinks
of bailing out, but decides to stick with the plane
because his bombadier ed Leonard is wounded and only semi
conscious in the rear seat. Let's return to Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
With badly burned hands and using only his elbows and
knees to control the stick, Cooper crash lands the plane
in a field. By the time Cooper and Leonard extract
themselves from the wreckage, a German pilot who is one
of those in the air duel, also lands in the field.
As described by Cooper, the handsome and middle bedecked pilot
(10:29):
strides over to the wounded Americans, salutes them and renders aid.
German infantry soon arrive and Cooper and Leonard are taken
to a German field hospital for treatment. German doctors save
Cooper's hands in Leonard's life. Cooper and Leonard are listed
as MIA until the Red Cross sends word early in
(10:53):
November that they are alive and recovering from their wounds
in a German hospital. The armises is signed a week
later and Cooper enlighted, are soon repatriated. Once back in
France and now a captain, Cooper volunteers for a humanitarian
missioned Poland. The Poles are starving their condition made even
(11:16):
worse by a Russian Bolshevik invasion. World War One may
be over, but the Polish Russian War is just beginning.
Cooper's organization of truck convoys with tons of food and
medical supplies endears him to the Poles, especially in East Galatia,
(11:37):
now part of Ukraine. However, he longs to join the
Polls in fighting the Russian Bolsheviks, who are able to
send more than seven hundred thousand troops into Poland. After
defeating their white Russian foes, Cooper personally contacts Poland's Head
of State, Marshall Joseph Polutsky, asking permission to organize a
(12:03):
squadron of American pilots to fight alongside the Poles and
repay the American debt oude to Poland for the services
of Kashmir Pulaski and Tadou's Kosciusko, another Polish nobleman who
served in the Continental Army with distinction. With Marshall Polutsky's approval,
(12:26):
Cooper begins recruiting American pilots. The first to join is
Colonel Cedric Errol Fauntleroy, a tall Mississippian who flew in
dy Rickerbocker's famed Squadron. Cooper wants a squadron named in
honor of Pulaski, but Fontleroy wants Koskiusko. Since Fount Lrooy
(12:47):
is the ranking officer, the unit becomes the Cosciusko Squadron.
In addition to Captain Cooper and Colonel Fontleroy, the founding
members of the squadron include Captain A. H. Kelly of Virginia,
Captain Ed Corsi of New York, Lieutenants Ed Noble and
(13:08):
EP Graves of Massachusetts, Lieutenant GARL. Clark of Oklahoma, Lieutenant
Ken Shrewsbared Virginia, Lieutenant Elliot Chess of Texas, and Lieutenant
George Crawford of Delaware. Certainly across section of America, many
more American volunteers will later join the squadron. By January
(13:33):
nineteen twenty, the squadron is in action, contributing significantly to
turning the tide of battle against the Russians. Captain Cooper's
in combat whenever weather permits, often flying low altitude missions
against the Cossack cavalry, which is attempting to sweep through
eastern Poland and into Warsaw. The American pilot's employ tactics
(13:56):
they learned in the World War One battles of San
miel And are gone. First, they would fly over the
Cossack columns at six hundred feet above the ground and
drop their bombs by hand. Then they would dive down
to only a few dozen feet above the ground and
fire their machine guns at the now fleeing Cossacks. These
(14:17):
bombing and strafing attacks are devastating to the Cossack cavalry,
but also take a toll on American pilots. Flying at
such low altitudes, particularly on the strafing runs, means small
arms can bring down the plane. Cooper also flies several
missions to Kiev, where he has a beautiful Polish girlfriend.
(14:40):
He later recalled the day I flew down the street
in Kiev with a wing almost shot off so I
could wave to my beautiful, luscious blonde and have her
blow a kiss at me. And if that wasn't worth
risking your life for, I don't know what is, particularly
as I had a date with that night. On July thirteenth,
(15:04):
Cooper is strafing Cossack cavalry When bullets ripped through his
gas tank and his engine begins to sputter. He switches
towards the reserve tank, but no luck. As his plane
is gliding to the earth, he watches Cossacks galloping their
horses to catch up with him. His dead stick landing
(15:25):
is smooth, but then his wheels hit a ditch and
the plain ground loops. Cooper is thrown out of the
cockpit and hits the ground with a thud. He struggles
to his feet, walks a few steps, then passes out.
Cooper regains consciousness with the help of a kick from
the boot of a dismounted Cossack. Cooper sees he's surrounded
(15:48):
by the notorious rushing cavalrymen. Cooper later says they look
like wild dogs jumping after a piece of raw meat.
He endures three days of beatings and whippings before arriving
at the headquarters of the Cossack cavalry commander, General Simeon Boudini.
Cooper thinks he will be interrogated and executed, but a
(16:12):
surprise to learn Boudini has a fondness for the Cosciusko pilots.
A few weeks earlier, the pilots could have killed Boudini
while he was riding in a train. However, the Americans
saw his wife was with him and decided to fly
by without attacking. Boudhini offers Cooper a job as a
(16:34):
fine instructor for the Bolsheviks, but Cooper will have none
of it and is sent to a prison near Moscow.
Malnutrition and disease take the lives of prisoners week by week,
and for various reasons. Prisoners are occasionally lined up against
a wall and shot. Cooper is chosen for the wall
(16:55):
three times, but each time his execution is called off.
During the spring of nineteen twenty one, he and two
of his fellow prisoners, both Polish lieutenants, swear an oath
to each other that they will attempt to escape or
die trying. Days later, when they are among a group
(17:16):
of prisoners taken into a forest to chop wood, Cooper
and the Polish officers slip away, moving rapidly through the forest,
and they have the good fortune to come upon a
rail line and leap, unseen aboard a freight train headed west.
The train takes them much of the way to the
Latvian border, but then its travel on foot, only by
(17:40):
night and only off the beaten path. At one point,
Cooper has to cut the throat of a Russian soldier
on patrol. When Cooper reaches Warsaw, he is greeted as
a conquering hero. Cooper says all the Coscuesco Squadron did
was nothing more than payback for the contributions of Pulaski
(18:02):
and Kosciusko to America's freedom in the American Revolution. Once
back in the United States, Cooper goes to work as
a reporter for the New York Times. After six months, though,
he's able to join an expedition led by a wealthy
explorer from California, Edward Salisbury, that is sailing to far
(18:25):
off places in search of adventure. This is something Cooper
has dreamed of since he was a little kid. The
expedition takes Cooper to the most remote islands of the
Southwest Pacific and to those of the Indian Ocean islands
of head honting human sacrifice in cannibalism. Out of the
(18:47):
expedition comes hundreds of photographs and hundreds of feet of film,
which has turned into a documentary. Also coming out of
the expedition is a book, The See Gypsy, written by
Mirian Cooper. The documentary and the book take Salisbury and
Cooper to Hollywood. Cooper is soon writing, directing, or producing
(19:11):
some of the best movies to ever come out of Hollywood.
People often say Hollywood doesn't make movies like they used to.
It may be because Hollywood doesn't have men like Mirian
Cooper anymore.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And a terrific job on The storytelling is always by
Greg Hangler and a special thanks to Roger McGrath. We
love the Hollywood Goes to War series, and my goodness,
so many great men served when they didn't have to.
There were many other ways they could have gone about
helping the effort, war bonds and the like, people like
(19:50):
John Ford, Frank Camper, John Houston, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable,
Gable at the height of his career, doing this over
and over again. The story of maryon Cooper here on
our American Story
Speaker 2 (20:17):
M
Host
Lee Habeeb
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