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Remember...Andrew Fred Cook Jr.
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Andrew enlisted in the Marine Corps on September 15, 1938. For several years he received training and was on duty at Parris Island in South Carolina, Quantico in Virginia, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and New River in North Carolina. In 1942 he was promoted to Second Lieutenant.
On November 4, 1942, while serving with the First Marine Division on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, Second Lieutenant Andrew F. Cook Jr. was killed in action while serving as leader of a patrol which sought hostile forces in Malimbu River vicinity.
Second Lieutenant Andrew F. Cook Jr. was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross the citation stated that "he made sudden contact with Japanese troops. He boldly rushed the crew of an enemy machine gun and was killed. . ." Lt. Andrew Cook was buried at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii.
Dallas Harry Cook was born May 19, 1921, in Robinette, West Virginia, the fourth child of Andrew Fred Sr. and Ina Stewart Cook and younger brother of Andrew Fred Cook Jr.
Dallas enlisted in the Marine Corps on August 14, 1940, in Charleston. He had duty in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Quantico. He was promoted to sergeant on May 21, 1942. He was killed in raid on Makin Island on August 18, 1942. He was awarded a Navy Cross for his actions that day the citation stated, "Fully aware of the hazards of an imminent enemy air attack, and with complete disregard of his own life, Sergeant Cook and four others volunteered to take a boat to a point just outside a reef and shoot a line ashore to assist in evacuating those men remaining on the beach. Caught on the sea, he was defeated in his valiant efforts by a violent strafing of his boat by withering enemy machine gun fire . . ."
Sergeant Dallas H. Cook is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 1944 a destroyer escort was named by the Navy the USS Cook in honor of the Cook brothers, and in 1945 the VFW Post in Matewan was named in honor of Dallas Cook.
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West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
