A 100-year-old World War II veteran from South Carolina was awarded France’s highest decoration for his service protecting European allies during the war.
French Consul General Anne-Laure Desjonqueres awarded Staff Sgt. Bruce Cook the “National Order of the French Legion of Honor” — the highest civil and military distinction in France, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.
The ceremony took place at Jim Hamilton-LB Owens Airport near the state capital of Columbia, South Carolina.
When he was 18, Cook served as a ball turret gunner on a bomber aircraft for 35 missions, an incredible total for one of the most hazardous assignments in World War II. He served two years.
A ball turret gunner operated twin .50 caliber machine guns from a cramped and freezing Plexiglas sphere suspended and fully exposed from the underbelly of B-17 or B-24 bombers, defending against enemy aircraft.
The lifespan of a ball turret gunner has been often cited as lasting only two minutes during air combat, though no statistics have been kept that could fully support that claim.
However, depending on the mission and time of the war, entire U.S. bomber crews could experience anywhere from 50 percent to just over 70 percent of their personnel getting killed, missing in action, or taken prisoner.
The exposed gunner position resulted in a powerful, iconic five-line poem by Randall Jarrell in 1945 near the end of the war, his lines also inspiring a New York play in 2008.
It goes:
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Cook, however, survived his nearly three dozen missions, tasked with protecting the air space above European allies, according to news outlets.
“Mr. Cook, you are a true hero — your example gives us inspiration for the future and your legacy provides a moral compass for generations to come,” Desjonqueres told him as she presented the honor.
Cook is now one of a few thousand American veterans to receive the honor.
“There is no way that I can even attempt to explain the feeling,” Cook said. “As far as I’m concerned, I am so unworthy. I want to be a representative of the people who didn’t come back. They are the ones who paid the real sacrifice.”
Cook now has five medals for his service.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. His father and namesake as an aeronautical engineer helped design several of the bombers used in World War II. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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