War Hero Piloted Flaming Truck into Creek

 In June 1961, Gale B. Cohill of Clear Spring – then a Democrat member of the Maryland House of Delegates – committed an impromptu act of heroism on the family farm that may have impressed even the General Assembly.

While Cohill was helping spray the orchards at Stafford Hall, the slave-built estate where he grew up, the blower on one of the spray trucks ignited, and one of its three motors caught fire.

At risk were the other two motors and the gas tank. If those went up, too, the farm workers would have an inferno on their hands.

Most people, confronted with such a situation, would run away from the burning truck. Cohill ran toward it, hopped into the cab, and drove the flaming truck straight toward Conococheague Creek. His thought, to the extent that thought was involved, was to douse the fire by driving into the water.

Between truck and creek, however, was a closed gate. When Cohill stopped to open the gate (picture, for a moment, doing that, then getting back in), even as the flames leapt higher … the truck stalled.

Fortunately, the way was downhill from there. Cohill got the blazing truck moving again and steered as it rolled into the creek. By the time firefighters arrived, the fire was out.

My guess is that Cohill’s disaster-averting reflex actions that day had not been learned in Annapolis, but somewhere over Asia, years before. In January 1947, Cohill had been awarded an Army Air Medal for his World War II service. As a technical sergeant in the Army Air Corps, Cohill flew 100-plus hours of combat missions against Japanese forces from bases in China, then a U.S. ally, thus (according to his citation) “inflicting heavy losses on the enemy in material and personnel” – and, who knows, maybe helping to douse some mid-flight aircraft fires on the way.

The report of his 1961 exploit in the Hagerstown Morning Herald has no byline, but I tip my hat to whoever wrote the lede:

Del. Gale Cohill, an ex-Flying Tiger, went down in flames yesterday, but he did not leave the ground.

Sources:

“Cohill Awarded Army Air Medal.” The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Maryland), 21 January 1947, Page 7. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021 via Newspapers.com.

“‘Flying Tiger’ Pilots Flaming Truck To Creek.” The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Maryland), 9 June 1961, Page 3. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021 via Newspapers.com.