Cobbs, Ralph Burton
Navy Lieutenant commander

Ralph Burton Cobbs, age 48, from East St. Louis, Illinois, Saint Clair county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Friday, June 17, 1966
Death details: On June 17, 1966, a C-130E Hercules (tail number 63-7785) carrying fourteen service members took off from Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, en route to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. Approximately twenty minutes after take-off, the Hercules exploded for unknown reasons and crashed into the South China Sea. Nearby ships witnessed the incident and quickly arrived on the scene to assist in rescue operations, and recovered the remains of two service members. However, twelve individuals who were aboard the aircraft were lost during the incident and remain unaccounted-for. Lieutenant Commander Ralph Burton Cobbs entered the U.S. Navy from Illinois and was a member of Air Transport Squadron 7. He was a crew member aboard this Hercules when it crashed, and his remains could not be recovered following the incident. Today, Lieutenant Commander Cobbs is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency