Luther Cooper, ASN 34552509, enlisted in Georgia and at some point was assigned to the 1243rd Engineer Aviation Fire Fighting Platoon (EAFFP).

The 1243rd EAFFP was organized on 27 May 1944 in Assi-Ben-Okba, Algeria for airfield crash fire rescue protection. This was accomplished by transferring firefighters from existing EAFFP’s in England and obtaining other personnel from the Station Complement or Air Service Group at the airfield. Besides functioning as a normal headquarters, the headquarters section had personnel and equipment for fire fighting. Included in its personnel was the platoon Commanding Officer, holding the rank of Lieutenant, who would be designated as the Fire Marshall, a fire chief, a section chief, clerk, truck mechanic, pump operators, drivers and firefighters.

The 1243rd EAFFP was reorganized on 20 June 1944 as an Engineer Composite Platoon, Fire Alarm Fire Control and reverted back to an EFFP 6 May 1945. Arrived in Arcole, Algeria on 10 June 1944 and then in Italy in October 1944. At some point the unit was relocated to Germany where it was deactivated on 14 May 1946. The unit was assigned to AAF Service Command.

Private First Class Cooper died on 29 May 1946. The circumstances leading to Pfc Cooper’s death are unknown at this time. Pfc Cooper is buried in Plot A, Row 17, Grave 26 in the Lorraine American Cemetery, St. Avold, France.

Sources

https://www.armyfirefighting.com/

http://www.firetrucks-atwar.com/

http://findagrave.com

https://go.newspapers.com/

https://aad.archives.gov/

https://www.ancestry.com

https://www.fold3.com

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen’s name, and read his/her story. If you noticed anything erroneous in this profile or have additional information to contribute to it, please contact me at allen.ward@armyfirefighting.com.

Luther J Cooper