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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

C. B. "Burt" Cosgrove 8 February 1906-7 August 1999
Col. C. B. "Burt" Cosgrove, a member of a pioneer New Mexico family and one of the state's first aviators died Saturday, August 7. He was 93. Cosgrove made his first solo flight at the age of 15 in a Curtiss "Jenny" (JN-4D) bi-plane that he had assembled himself. While still in his early twenties, he went on to become the first director of the Tucson airport, where he worked with Col. Charles Lindbergh setting up the nation's first transcontinental airline route. After beginning active duty with the U.S. Army Air Corps in the mid-1930s, Cosgrove piloted the experimental B-17 bomber and worked with General "Gene" Eubank to organize the famed 19th Bombardment Group which trained at Albuquerque's Kirtland Field.
In 1941 he helped set up a bomber squadron to protect the American Commonwealth of the Philippines and was at Clark Field when it was bombed on Pearl Harbor Day. In the early years of World War II Colonel Cosgrove flew bombing missions in the Pacific. When the Philippines were occupied by the Japanese, he and General Eubank and other key officers were ordered to evacuate. After his plane was destroyed, he fought his way overland through jungle terrain and enemy controlled sea-lanes eventually making his way to safety in Australia. In recognition of his leadership in combat Colonel Cosgrove was awarded the Silver Star, one of the nation's highest military decorations.
Burt Cosgrove was born in 1906 in Atchison, Kansas, where perhaps, prophetically, the Cosgroves were neighbors to the family of pilot Amelia Earhart. In 1907 Cosgrove Sr. moved with his wife and year-old son to New Mexico. They settled near relatives in Silver City. From earliest childhood Burt worked alongside his parents, well-known Southwest archaeologists Cornelius Burton Cosgrove and Harriet "Hattie" Silliman Cosgrove, who in affiliation with the Harvard University Peabody Museum-supervised the excavation of the historic Mimbres villages of southwestern New Mexico.

Burt attended New Mexico Military Institute and went on to the University of Arizona where he received a degree in Archaeology. Cosgrove supervised significant projects at Casa Grande National Monument and the Petrified Forest in Arizona before giving up an already notable career in archeology to pursue his love of flying. In 1931 he married Mildred Barbara Tuthill who became a pilot. Lifelong international travelers, the couple spent the first year of their married life in Peking, where Mildred is believed to have been the first woman pilot to fly in China.
After the evacuation of the Philippines, Colonel Cosgrove was stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., where he helped recruit many of the scientists and military officers who worked on the atomic bomb project. At war's end, he served as commander of the Santa Monica Air Force Redistribution Center under the direct command of General "Hap" Arnold, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, and later served on the Inspector General's staff overseeing reconstruction of much of war-ravaged Europe.
Cosgrove throughout his career was associated with movie projects, which began with his role taxiing planes in California for Howard Hughes's film "Hell's Angels." He later flew a B-17 bomber that was featured in the 1936 movie "They Wanted Wings.”In the late 1940's Colonel Cosgrove was base commander at Burbank Field where he produced training films for the Air Force. Tyrone Power and Gary Cooper were among the early film actors who worked with him and who remained friends. The Cosgroves had one son, Burt III, who accompanied them on many of their world travels. Colonel Cosgrove continued to fly up until the time of his retirement in 1956.
After retirement, the Cosgroves settled in Albuquerque. New Mexico had been a family home since the mid-nineteenth century. Colonel Cosgrove continued to travel throughout his retirement years, returning to China, and traveling to Tibet in 1983 where he had not been allowed access on his first visit to China in 1931. Colonel Cosgrove is survived by his son retired Judge Burt Cosgrove.