WILLIAM R. COOK, LT, USN
William Cook '38
Lucky Bag
From the 1938 Lucky Bag:
WILLIAM RAYMOND COOK
Lissie, Texas
Cookie, Cocinero
Despite the fact that Bill wasn't born in Texas, he is the tall, rangy type we usually associate with that state. His ability to sustain a conversation with or without a listener also confirms his Texan heritage. Slow and easy-going, he refuses to be worried by anything except that he can't argue back at the radio announcer. Although his first "pap" Plebe year was "Reveille, not turned out at," he has yet to hear his first bugle. His sunny disposition and ready smile make him a welcome addition to any gathering. It is when things look darkest that we find him at his peak. Just imagine a dismal Monday morning, prunes and eggs for breakfast, and a week of exams head-on. Someone beats on his chest and exclaims "Oh, boy, it's great to be alive!" That gentleman is Bill Cook, Cookie for short.
Movie Gang 3, 2, 1; Make-up Gang 4, 3, 2, 1; Ensign.
WILLIAM RAYMOND COOK
Lissie, Texas
Cookie, Cocinero
Despite the fact that Bill wasn't born in Texas, he is the tall, rangy type we usually associate with that state. His ability to sustain a conversation with or without a listener also confirms his Texan heritage. Slow and easy-going, he refuses to be worried by anything except that he can't argue back at the radio announcer. Although his first "pap" Plebe year was "Reveille, not turned out at," he has yet to hear his first bugle. His sunny disposition and ready smile make him a welcome addition to any gathering. It is when things look darkest that we find him at his peak. Just imagine a dismal Monday morning, prunes and eggs for breakfast, and a week of exams head-on. Someone beats on his chest and exclaims "Oh, boy, it's great to be alive!" That gentleman is Bill Cook, Cookie for short.
Movie Gang 3, 2, 1; Make-up Gang 4, 3, 2, 1; Ensign.
Loss
William was lost when USS Wasp (CV 7) was sunk by a Japanese submarine on September 15, 1942.
Obituary
From Colorado County History:
REMEMBERING WILLIAM R. "BILLY" COOK
By Joe C. Fling
This year marks 60 years since the first full year of American involvement in World War II (1942). Therefore it has been 60 years since our fallen heroes of World War II made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for the freedom which we today hold so dear. Which we have all been so painfully reminded of last September 11.
Sixty years ago this month, Eagle Lake suffered its first battle death of World War II, when William R. "Billy" Cook died in the South Pacific, although this was not known for some weeks later.
Cook was the son of George E. Cook of Lissie, and graduated from Eagle Lake High School in 1933. He was active and athletic, and reportedly well-liked by all who knew him. Congressman J.J. Mansfield appointed Cook to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he finished, receiving his officer's commission in 1938. Before the war, Billy served on numerous ships, reportedly virtually sailed the seven seas, visited numerous ports of call around the world. While aboard the Battleship Colorado, Cook passed thorough the Panama Canal.
As World War II broke out, Cook was aboard the U.S.S. Wasp, which was on loan to the British Royal Navy for the transport of fighter planes to the besieged Mediterranean island of Malta. When Wasp completed a second shipment of badly needed Spitfires, a grateful Winston Churchill cabled President Franklin Roosevelt, "Who says a Wasp can't sting twice."
The day those planes were delivered, the carrier Lexington was lost in Coral Sea. Wasp was rushed to the Pacific theatre of operations. During a brief stopover in its home base at Norfolk, Virginia, Cook was married to Charlotte West, on May 30, 1942. Cook wrote to his parents about his action in the Mediterranean Sea, "The angel of God was with us." Lest than four months later, Lt. Cook was lost when the ship went down in the Solomon Islands.
In the hard fighting in and around the Solomons, after the marines landed on Guadalcanal, the Japanese sank in a period of three months, Japanese air and sea power decimated the U.S. Navy. On September 15, 1942, Wasp was hit by three torpedoes from two Japanese submarines. Time magazine reported that "Wasp died so fast that there was no time for an orderly Abandon Ship." Explosions ripped the ship from stem to stern and she went to the bottom in a matter of minutes. Although over 1800 men survived and were rescued from the sea, 193 others, including Billy Cook went down with the ship. No doubt many died in the fires and explosions that destroyed the carrier. Yet, Richard Hummel writes in his book on the carrier war in the Pacific, "If ever a warship went to its doom with her last mission fulfilled, it was Wasp. The transports she had been covering landed 4000 men of the 7th Marines to join the garrison on Guadalcanal."
Ironically, Franklin Reese of Eagle Lake was serving on the same ship, and returned home on an unexpected leave on October 14. He was tight-lipped about the reason that he was home, and about what had happened in the Pacific. Reese's situation proved awkward indeed since the Cook family was anxious about news of the their own son until the U.S. government released news of the sinking of the Wasp a couple of week's later.
Lizzie Westmoreland dashed off a poem, printed in the Headlight on October 30 which concluded with the words:
"Our own lives must reflect that courage\
In the will to give ourselves in service constantly\
As other boys at home and overseas must carry on\
Until the fightings done and Freedom and the right to live\
For all the world is won."Miss Lizzie's own son John Westmoreland would die in the service less than 90 days later.
Lt. W.R. Cook is memorialized with a marker in the Masonic cemetery in Eagle Lake, only a short way from Congressman Mansfield. As many of you know of course Cook has numerous family still living in and around Eagle Lake, including a namesake Billy Cook and State Representative Robbie Cook.
Other Information
He was a member of Wasp's pre-commissioning crew, and served aboard her until her sinking and his loss.
His wife was listed as next of kin.
William has a memory marker in Texas.
The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.
The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.
The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.
July 1938
January 1939
October 1939
June 1940
LTjg James Fitzpatrick, Jr. '35 (Bombing Squadron (VB) 7)\
LTjg Mark Eslick, Jr. '35 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 72)
LTjg Joseph Evans '36 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 72)\
LTjg Webster Johnson '36 (Fighting Squadron (VF) 7)
November 1940
LTjg James Fitzpatrick, Jr. '35 (Fighting Squadron (VF) 71)\
LTjg Mark Eslick, Jr. '35 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 72)
LTjg Webster Johnson '36 (Fighting Squadron (VF) 72)\
LTjg Donald Patterson '37 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 71)
April 1941
LT Baylies Clark '30 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 71)\
LTjg James Fitzpatrick, Jr. '35 (Fighting Squadron (VF) 72)\
LTjg Mark Eslick, Jr. '35 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 72)\
LTjg Dewitt Harrell '35 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 71)
LTjg Porter Maxwell '36 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 71)\
LTjg Donald Patterson '37 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 71)\
ENS Frank Case, Jr. '38 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 71)\
ENS Alphonse Minvielle '38 (Scouting Squadron (VS) 72)
Memorial Hall Error
William's last name is misspelled as "Cooke" with his classmates and on the killed in action panel at the front of Memorial Hall. All other references have "Cook," including the Lucky Bag and Annual Register of the United States Naval Academy 1937-1938.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
