Art Cobert more than a war hero to patients, staff at Mount Pleasant Hospital

By Sam Tyson
cstyson@sbgtv.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCIV) -- Three days a week at Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital, Arthur Cobert mans his duty station either at the front desk or in the outpatient care center.

Cobert is a few weeks shy of his 95th birthday, a World War II veteran with two purple hearts, and a welcome sight in the halls of the hospital.

In the roughly five years since the hospital opened, Cobert -- Mister Art to the staff -- has been a mainstay. He says he joined the Roper St. Francis family shortly after his "sweetheart" passed away.

Cobert says his daughter told him he had to get out of the house after his wife died, so he turned to the hospital since construction had just finished. It was 2011.

Cobert's "sweetheart," his wife of 69 years, had been by his side on the Isle of Palms for 30 years. She saw him off to World War II shortly after they got married.

It was a 26-day mission to get to the Pacific. In a word, it took "forever," he said. The eight-man Flying Tigers crew started in Miami and every time they landed, they spent the night. It meant nights in Puerto Rico, Guiana, Brazil, a few nights in Africa, then on to India, across the Himalayas, and into China.

His daughter was born while he was half a world away, flying missions over China as a turret gunner in a B-25 bomber.

"I spent three years in the military. I spent 12-14 months over in China, Burma, and India," Cobert said. "I flew 17 combat missions and I was shot down on my second."

Being an airman in World War II meant learning everything about the planes he was flying.

"If somebody died, you had to take their place. That's just the way it was. Today they only teach you one job, but in the old days you did everything," Cobert said.

Twice the 22-year-old airman was wounded; one of those he wondered if he would survive. An enemy plane dropped out of the sky from above, opening fire on his bomber. He had been hit.

"I was shot out of my turret and I was laying on the floor, had blood and hydraulic fluid all over me and we had three hours back to base," Cobert said.

As the plane touched down at their base, the two engines quit.

"Apparently I wasn't supposed to die that day. But that's the way it was," he said.

About a year later, the war was ending and it was time to come home. Fortunately, the return trip to his "sweetheart" didn't take the better part of a month. Instead, a group of brand new A-26 Invaders had been delivered and needed to be returned.

Cobert's colonel singled him out to get the light bombers to Germany.

"'I don't want you to stay here because if you do it's going to take us six to eight months to get a ship back to the United States from China. So I want you to go on the trip from China to Germany in that A-26 airplane,'"Cobert recalled.

Cobert moved on to the "cigarette camps" of France, where he picked up a rare group.

"I was a five-stripe sergeant and they gave me a job. They gave me 130 black troops to bring home," he said.

It was an unexpected assignment because the military at that time did not assign white officers to black units. Still, Cobert was told to get the troops on a ship and safely back to the states. He says the North Atlantic trip across the ocean took five days and he was the only person on board who didn't get sick.

"We got to Norfolk and they fed us steak and ice cream. So that was an interesting time," he said. "After Norfolk they put us on a bus for an airfield nearest our home so I got to Fort Meade, Maryland, which was near Washington, and the Washington Post picked me up and took all kinds of pictures of me and stories and so there I was, home after that."

His wife was there to meet him.

"My dad drove her to Fort Meade in his old Packard. He used to love Packard automobiles, and picked me up and brought me home," Cobert said.

Looking forward to getting back to normal life with his wife and new daughter, Cobert ended up taking an unexpected turn. The military wanted him to go to college.

"People like me in the military didn't go to college because there was no point unless you wanted to be a school teacher or something like that," he said. "After the war they took 6 million of us dumb jackasses and literally shoved us into college. We filled up every college in the country. And I went to George Washington."

Cobert says graduating from college meant he was a professional -- "Big deal," he said -- but it led him into civil service at the Pentagon and Crystal City, a career that ultimately put him in the office of four-star Adm. Isaac Kidd.

He retired and came to South Carolina. It was a place his "sweetheart" loved.

"I lived on the Isle of Palms for 30 years. When we came to the Isle of Palms she felt like she had died and gone to heaven," he said.

But working in the admiral's office as a five-stripe sergeant is a bragging point for Cobert these days, and it's something that patients sitting nervously in outpatient care get to hear about.

Staffers say he's a welcome sight to both them and patients. Rev. David Adams, the staff chaplain at Mount Pleasant Hospital, says Cobert will so captivate nervous patients with his stories that they will often make sure he will still be around when they leave the hospital so he can finish his tale.

He buzzes around the hospital, helping patients find the right waiting room or office. It's not often he's welcoming patients in a B-25 flight suit, but on Veterans Day he pulled it out for photos.

Yes, the 70-year-old World War II flight suit still fits. He says he exercises twice a week and that helps keep him in shape.

"I try to stay in condition," Cobert said.

When he's not at the hospital, he's usually at home on the Isle of Palms. He lives there still with his daughter. It's a good arrangement, he says: "She stays on the third floor and I stay on the second so we don't fight."

One of Rev. Adams' favorite stories about Cobert is the time his daughter tried to move him into a retirement community in Florida. As Adams tells it, Cobert and his daughter went to Florida for what was meant to be a short visit before she explained that she had moved him in. There was a little back and forth between the two before he agreed to at least try living in the community for a few months.

He lasted about 30 days, Adams said.

Cobert packed his things in his little Honda and headed back to the Lowcountry, the beach, and the people he loves to help. Adams says Cobert called his daughter somewhere around Savannah to let her know he was coming home -- and there was nothing she could do about it.

Cobert is at home in the hospital. It's his base now and there's no way he's willing to give up his duty stations again. And no one at Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant wants him to, either.

"I like being able to be around people and be with people. If I was home I would be by myself and that's not the best thing," he said.