Real Heroes – Cobb, Rush

Private First Class Rush Cobb, 31, was killed in action on Luzon on May 4, 1945, according to a message received from the War Department by his wife, the former Janie Thrift of Cliffside. His death brought Rutherford County’s total World War II dead to 115 men.

Private First Class Cobb, son of Mr. and Mrs. R. 0. Cobb of Cliffside, entered the U.S. Army on December 27, 1942. Trained at Camp Croft, South Carolina, and Camp Butner, North Carolina, he was a member of an Infantry Regiment. He went overseas December 31, 1943, and served in Hawaii, New Guinea, and the Phillippines. He was killed on Luzon.

Private First Class Cobb (1914-1945) was survived by his wife; his parents; one sister, Mary Helen Cobb, Cliffside; five brothers, Taft and Worth Cobb, at home; Corporal Ray Cobb and Private Russell Cobb, both in Germany; and Marshall Cobb, Seaman First Class, U.S. Navy, somewhere in the Pacific. (Forest City Courier, June 21, 1945)

Photo courtesy of Daily Courier, Forest City, North Carolina, and James R. Brown, Publisher

From Real Heroes: Rutherford County Men Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice During World War II, by Anita Price Davis. Copyright © 2002 by The Honoribus Press, Spartanburg, SC. Reprinted with permission.