Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of Ernest and Christina Barbara Cox, of Launceston, Tasmania

Arvo Anson I N5158

Training Flight Mid-air collision with Anson N5177 (also of 108 Squadron) near Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire.

AUSTRALIAN KILLED
LAUNCESTON (Tas.), Thursday. - Advice was received in Launceston to-day by the parents of Pilot-Officer Robert Ernest Cox, aged 20 years, that he was killed in an air accident near Weston-on the- Green (Oxfordshire) on Tuesday. Details of the accident are not given in the cablegram received from the Air Ministry. The funeral, with full service honours will take place at Caversfleld Parish Church, Bicester, on Friday. Pilot-Officer Cox was attached to a Blenheim Bomber Squadron, and had been in England since June, 1938.

COLLISION
IN AIR
Death of Pilot
Officer Cox
"According to an eye-witness' statement, the two machines suddenly appeared to lock together, and then dived vertically into the ground. The cause of the collision it at present obscure." In these  words, an official letter from the Air Ministry describes the accident in which Pilot-Officer Robert Ernest Cox, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Cox, of West Tamar road, Launceston, was killed while  undergoing an R.A.F. advanced training course in Oxfordshire on October 31.
Several letters have been received by Mr. and Mrs. Cox regarding the accident, including the one from the Air Ministry, one from their son's commanding officer, and one from the flight-lieutenant  immediately superior to him.
They all combine to make it clear that he was only a passenger at the time of the accident and was not piloting his machine, and praise his keen ness, which led hIim to gain air experience as a  passenger during every moment when he was not required to take a machine up himself. 
All Three Killed
"There is very little that I can tell you about the accident," writes the commanding officer of the squadron to which Pilot-Officer Cox was attached, "other than that your son was flying as a passenger in  an aircraft piloted by a Pilot-Officer Cody, a Canadian officer, who was an experienced instructor in this squadron. "Formation flying was being carried out with another machine piloted by an officer named Green, and for some obscure reason the two aircraft collided and crashed, the occupants of both machines being killed." 
A letter from the flight-lieutenant under whom Pilot-Officer Cox was training states that the collision occurred as the two machines were coming in to land, so that they were too low for the occupants  to make use of their parachutes. Both this letter and the official Air Ministry letter state that Pilot-Officer Cox must have been killed instantaneously.
The three officers killed were given a full service funeral, which was attended by the entire squadron and a number of officers and airmen from R.A.F. station, Bicester, and they were buried side by side  in Caversfleld Church yard, Bicester. Over 300 officers and men attended the funeral.
"Merit and Zeal"
A warm tribute to Pilot-Officer Cox's qualities was paid by his commanding offtcer in his letter. "Your son, who was here on a training course, had been in the squadron for approximately only one  month, but in this very short time both his flight commander and I realised that he was a most conscientious and reliable officer," he writes. "He took a particularly keen interest in all matters  appertaining to the service and would have done well. The report which followed him from his flying training school also made a particular note of his outstanding merit and zeal, and this fact had been noted in his records, he having obtained a distinguished pass." The letter from his immediate superior remarks, "His work was excellent and he was an excellent pilot, even though he had only been in the service a year."
Enclosed in this letter, Mr. and Mrs. Cox received their son's "Wings," the badge which an Air Force pilot wears on his tunic.