Seattle-born Lloyd Thomas Cochran was the middle of three sons born to William Cochran and his wife, Lena Sather, a native of Norway. A 1912 graduate of Ballard High School, Lloyd attended the University of Washington graduating with a law degree in 1917. Even before the US entered the war, Lloyd had applied to the first Officers Training School at the Presidio and been awarded a commission. At the time his unit shipped overseas in July of 1918, Lloyd was a 2nd Lieutenant with Company F of the 363rd Infantry Regiment which was part of the 91st Infantry Division — known as the “Wild West Division” — out of Camp Lewis. Lloyd was the first man of Company F to be killed. Cochran was killed by a German sniper as he led his unit in a charge on the first day of the battle of Meuse-Argonne, September 26, 1918.
Just minutes before he and his company had discovered “a German machine gun “nest” with six or eight Germans around it. A German prisoner, who had escaped the bombardment had been captured a half hour before and was questioned sharply. He lied about the location of the machine gun but Cochran said not to handle the prisoner too rough as he would not like to be mistreated himself if a prisoner” as reported in the Seattle Daily Times in a series of articles written by Colin Dyment, Director of the UW’s School of Journalism. (Seattle Daily Times, Apr 14, 1919, pg. 7). Dyment goes on to say the German snipers responsible for Lloyd’s death were “promptly executed”. Originally buried at Bois de Cheppy, in France, Lloyd was reinterred in Seattle’s Evergreen-Washington Cemetery. (bit.ly/uw_cochran) American Legion Post No. 40 in Ballard is named in his honor. (www.facebook.com/BallardPost40)