Major L. Cohn was born in Manhattan, New York in October 1927. He grew up in Brooklyn during the difficult times of the Great Depression. Severe winters compounded the tough times. His father and mother were both lawyers. His father lost his sight at eight years of age. He was then educated in a Catholic school for the blind. He learned much about that religion despite the family obviously not being Catholic [Annotator's Note: Cohn's family was Jewish]. It was unusual for a blind man to become a lawyer but equally unusual for a woman to become a lawyer in the early 20th century. Cohn's first neighborhood friends were mostly Jewish until the family moved to an area with fewer Jews. It was ethnically diverse except there were no blacks or Asians. There were middle class people from various European backgrounds. He lived near the airport called Ebbets Field. He faced more anti-Semitism in the service than he did growing up. He experienced violence and petty theft rather than religious bigotry during his youth. The Cohn family often discussed news events and the war in Europe and Asia. Isolationism was prevalent in the United States. When England and France entered the war, Liberty ships carried cargo to support their efforts against the Germans. Strong debates resulted from that. To a youthful Cohn, the war seemed far away. When the war hit, his brother was drafted and teachers left as they were called into service or were employed by more financially lucrative war production industries. Class sizes grew extremely large and teachers seemed non-existent. Cohn's education was not very satisfactory. Two people sat in one seat in the classrooms. The family was stunned by the attack on Pearl Harbor. They did not know the location of the installations, but they knew it was an attack on America. Almost all of the fleet was sunk and there were huge losses. It was overwhelming. Life drastically changed. His brother was drafted even though he helped support the family. The family was disturbed that he was going into the Army. Boot camp really physically changed Cohn's brother. After boot camp, Cohn's brother was sent to the Pacific. The family would not see him again for over four years. Cohn felt that with his brother serving, the war would end and he would not personally have military service. The family followed the events on the various fronts. His brother wrote fairly regularly. Cohn's brother was mistaken for a spy as a result of letters he wrote to his girlfriend that contained mathematical problems that were misinterpreted as coded messages. His brother served in the medical corps in New Guinea. After Cohn graduated, he entered Brooklyn College and attended for a semester or two before he elected to enlist. He considered that he would be drafted otherwise.

Major Cohn joined the Navy and originally thought of becoming a submariner. He mistakenly thought it would be romantic. When submarine training school was full, he elected to join the naval air corps. He was sent to engineering classes at Brown University. With the end of the war in Europe, aviation trainees were required to sign an agreement to serve a minimum of five years. That was due to the service commitment to aviation training for an individual. Cohn's parents were not supportive of him choosing to stay five years in the Navy. He listened to them and went to Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago. It was very cold. Instead of three months of basic training, he had only 30 days and then was sent to Bakersfield, California. A nearby Navy prison had Marines in charge of guard duty. Cohn saw the physically abusive treatment the Marines gave the sailors and felt it was wrong to have them oversee the prisoners. Cohn was asked the type ship he preferred to serve on. He did not want a large ship but asked for a small one instead. He was sent to San Francisco to serve on a destroyer-mine sweeper. It was larger than he anticipated. He was trained on minesweeping equipment as the ship voyaged to Hawaii. There were rifles on the ship to shoot the mines after their restraining cables or chains were cut. The mine was detonated as long as the shot could be made with the ship rolling. Another means to detonate loose mines was to row out to the floating danger and attached explosive devices to it. That was perilous duty. Cohn joined the ship as a lowly 3rd class seaman. He was at the bottom of the ranks and did menial assignments. He was burned after spilling hot soup on himself on a wet, rolling ship. He still has the scars. He has a war injury by soup burn. [Annotator's Note: Cohn laughs.] His ship was preparing for the invasion of Japan. The invasion was set for August or September 1945. The sea was calm and the ship was headed north. The men were tense but not overwhelmed by fear. When they passed much larger ships, the anxiety increased. The small ship was headed to harm's way. The ship grew silent. When they came to an abrupt halt, anxiety increased. The atomic bombs had been dropped. The crew did not know what had happened. There was no communication except for the order for ship to halt. It was only five days later that Cohn's ship learned that the Japanese had surrendered. That announcement surprised the Americans due to the discipline and ferocity of the Japanese.

Major Cohn served in the Pacific during the war. He received his service ribbon for performing his duty. He had no regrets about not being in combat or doing more perilous duty. Cohn had a friend who sailed on a ship called the USS Meade (DD-602). The crew all came from the state of New York. His friend developed appendicitis and had to be transferred to a hospital ship. Two days later the Meade was sunk with no survivors. Cohn's friend wrote home to his parents frequently. A letter from the Navy arrived saying that the crew of the Meade had been lost. It confused his friend's mother because letters arrived from her son after the date of the sinking. The Red Cross finally solved the problem when they located his friend. It was an unusual story of misidentification of Cohn's friend having been being lost in action. Cohn experienced strong anti-Semitism on the ship. Aboard Cohn's ship, a man named Kelly had an Irish father and Jewish mother. He and Cohn were frequently given harsh duty. Cohn objected but there were only a few of the crew who supported him. There was a hostile environment on the ship. Cohn was unhappy, mostly confined, and given the worse bunk. It was noisy, hot, and uncomfortable. He witnessed violence on the ship. It was not unique to his ship. Theft was rampant. People of all types of backgrounds were taken into the service. Some were not too good. None of those personal incidents were related to the Japanese. Cohn's brother was in the Philippines and saw some of the abusive things the enemy did. After the war, Cohn's brother was put up in a Japanese physician's home in Japan. The man had been educated at Oxford. An enemy can take various forms. Cohn's brother still works despite being quite elderly.

Major Cohn returned to the United States feeling lost and without a direction for his future. He was discharged in San Francisco with sufficient funds for transport home. Cohn returned home after inquiring at several schools in the area. He felt lost because he was taken out of the rhythm of life he had experienced prior to the military. He knew his surroundings but could not decide what his next step in life was to be. He was not a good student except in math and chemistry. He had little interest in the other subjects. German was required because of his major in chemistry. He had difficulty learning the language. His grades improved after completing those courses. He subsequently entered the University of Wisconsin to further his chemistry education. The work was rigorous so Cohn left and returned home not knowing what to do next. His older brother had been mentored on New Guinea by a major who was a former college professor. When Cohn's brother returned home, he entered graduate school under the professor he had met in the Pacific. He was educated in the field of immunology. There were only five others trained in the field. When Cohn wrote to his brother indicating that he had no direction in life, his brother suggested he follow their parents and enter law school. Concerned with not being able to meet the grade standards, he elected to follow his brother's next recommendation which was a suggestion that Cohn go to Europe and study in a university there.

Major Cohn sailed to France to attend university. He spent significant time on the voyage playing chess with a black jazz musician. When Cohn entered Paris, he spoke no French. It was confusing for six months and then he started medical school at the Sorbonne. He could not understand what was being said but learned slowly. He knew he could not succeed in that manner. He met an American black woman who was born in Holland. They became friends. She left after a couple of years and was bound for Switzerland. As Cohn became more frustrated, he decided to return to American. His female friend in Switzerland convinced him to go to Switzerland where the examinations for his degree were mainly oral. He went to Fribourg, Switzerland followed by medical school in Geneva. He used the G.I Bill to help subsidize his lifestyle along with that of a male friend at the time. Life was frugal. His friend would become an English tutor and help with the expenses. Cohn met his wife, Marthe, in Geneva during this time. They did not get along in the beginning because he felt she was too short. [Annotator's Note: Cohn laughs.] They became romantically involved later. She attended school subsequently in St. Louis as a nurse despite not knowing English. The couple was separated until Cohn applied to do his residency in St. Louis. Then they were reunited.

Major Cohn likely would have stayed in St. Louis after his residency but he had to return home to assist his dying father. He completed his gastroenterology training at New York University. Because of segregation problems, his wife did not have the advantages of getting the job she wanted. Cohn did find her a satisfying position for her. He joined the cancer hospital at Sloan-Kettering Institute. Cohn's father was misdiagnosed and lived another 30 years. Cohn matured during his experience with the cancer patients. He attended some unique and very trying cases including a cancer patient who was pregnant. It was a time when physicians thought cancer was contagious which provided obstacles to efficient treatment of his patients. This was during the 1950s and 1960s. The reality concerning the disease was revealed later to physicians and the public.

Major Cohn thought the end of the war was his most memorable experience of World War 2. No one expected it to end so abruptly. No one understood the atomic bomb and its effect on the future. It was thought impossible to drop one bomb and end the war. The alternative was the invasion of Japan against the ferocious enemy. That was likewise unimaginable. The Japanese surrender was worth celebrating. Cohn felt it was an amazing moment. Cohn never would have met his wife or gone to Europe except for the war. The war transformed his life. He was lost when he returned from the war. He found another direction like many other service people. Cohn only learned that his wife was in the French intelligence service during the war after they had married. He was too busy flirting with her prior to that time. She survived the war even though she was Jewish. She had incidents that occurred that continued to terrify her after peace had come. Her story came out in 1995 when Spielberg [Annotator's Note: Steven Spielberg] asked war survivors to come forward and tell their story. Her interview was over five hours. It is in the Holocaust Museum. She received the Congressional Medal of France and other military decorations. Her records as a spy were sealed for 50 years after her service. She did incredible work but she was just his wife. The couple travel the world.