United States Navy aerologist and polar explorer of Slovak descent who filmed the signing of the Japanese surrender in colour.
Kosco graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1930, and earned a master’s degree in weather aerology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. Kosco spent much of the 1930s hurricane hunting in the Caribbean.
Kosco was assigned to Admiral William Halsey Jr.’s Third Fleet in early October 1944. In December, the fleet was struck by Typhoon Cobra, which destroyed three ships. Kosco, aboard the USS New Jersey, reported a “tropical disturbance” 600 miles (970 km) to the east, and moving away from the fleet, when in fact it was a full-blown typhoon 200 miles (320 km) away and coming towards the fleet.
In 1967, Kosco published an account of the incident coauthored with Hans Christian Adamson, Halsey’s Typhoons: A Firsthand Account of How Two Typhoons, More Powerful than the Japanese, Dealt Death and Destruction to Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet.
Kosco was present at the signing ceremony of the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri at Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. He took what is believed to be the only colour film footage of the ceremony. This was only released publicly in 2010.
In 1946 Kosco participated in Operation Nanook in the Arctic. He was then chief aerologist and chief scientist in Operation Highjump in the Antarctic with Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd Jr. in 1946-1947. He also led several other polar expeditions, collecting specimens for the Smithsonian Institution. Kosco Glacier in Antarctica was named in his honour in 1962. Kosco retired from the Navy in 1960.
In 1939 he had married Bernadette Howley (1912–2013); the couple had three children. He died on 11 June 1985 at age 77 at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland.
Link to Wikipedia biography