Texas family spent 82 years wondering about soldier’s fate. Now, they have an answer
A West Texas boy is coming home from war.
His family has been grieving for 82 years.
The remains of Pfc. Orville J. Cox, 19, killed in the Pacific during World War II, will finally come home to rest near Paint Creek, the tiny town near Abilene that sent him proudly off to the Philippines in 1940.
Cox, an Army Air Forces mechanic, was killed there Feb. 8, 1942, in fighting at Agaloma Point on the storied Bataan Peninsula.
His family was notified during DNA analysis last year. The news of his recovery was official June 4.
“His mother grieved for him all those years, not knowing what happened to him or where he was,” said Ruth Larned, 92, of Haskell, a younger brother’s widow.
“The family never talked a lot about Orville. It was such a heartbreaking thing for her. Now, it’s a relief to know he has finally been found.”
The Cox family went to the little Methodist church in Paint Creek along with another tenant farmer family, the Perrys.
Ray Perry served as a B-17 tailgunner over Germany in World War II.
When he came home, he fathered the best-known Texan from Paint Creek: former Gov. and U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
“If my dad were still here, I’m sure he could tell you all about the Coxes,” Perry said. Later, Ray Perry was a pallbearer at another Cox son’s funeral.
“It’s so sad — there’s very few of the Coxes still alive. But still, there’s going to be a big turnout to support them, and I’ll do my best to be there when they inter him,” probably this fall at Willow Cemetery in Haskell.
Haskell County alone lost 47 men in World War II. A total of 22,022 Texans were killed.
Perry has toured one of the labs where scientists from the Department of Defense are working long hours to analyze the remains of lost heroes.
“I’ve been around so many of these families — there is just such sadness, not knowing what happened to your loved one,” he said.
One of Perry’s Texas A&M classmates was a pilot who never came back from a Korean mission and was never found.
“There’s this haunting thing in your mind,” Perry said.
“You think, maybe he was knocked unconscious, maybe he was saved and doesn’t remember anything, maybe he’s still living over there — all these things run through your mind. The comfort is what you seek.”
When Cox died, the Wichita Falls Times said he had enlisted after graduating from high school in 1940.
He was sent to the Philippines with the 34th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group. it was wiped out within four months after war broke out in the Pacific.
His parents last heard from him at Christmas 1941, in a cablegram message saying he was “well and doing fine.”
A niece and nephew remain to handle the arrangements, Ruth Larned said. A great-nephew, Shannon Langford, is an assistant fire chief in Farmers Branch.
Cox was known for his woodworking and love of the Paint Creek school wood shop. So his remains will be safely enclosed inside a custom wood coffin.
“We hear all these people are coming for a full military service, maybe 1,000 people,” she said.
“It’ll be a big deal for Haskell.”
It’ll be a big deal for Texas and America.
