Howard P. Cooke US Navy |
"The first explosions came right over us. I looked up and I could see a plane with the Japanese emblem on it, the rising sun. Immediately, I knew this was the real thing. Anyone who says they weren't scared, lies." The memories are as vivid today as when the Pearl Harbor attack began for then 18 year-old US Navy Seaman 2nd Class Howard P. Cooke, a 1941 graduate of Ellensburg High School. "I don't think you lose those memories even after over a half a century," he said. "Being a country boy and ending up in a situation like that, it was traumatic." Cooke spent the next 72 straight hours on a motorboat picking up survivors and casualties, and carrying crews to survey the mass destruction. "It was an exhausting experience, but military people are trained and just have to face the circumstances," he recalled. Cooke spent four months after the attack at the Advanced Naval Communication Unit at Guadalcanal and 2 ½ years in the South Pacific before leaving the Navy for Washington and enrolling in the education program at what was then Central Washington College of Education. Cooke received bachelors and master's degrees in education from CWCE. He spent a total of 31 years as a teacher and principal in Washington and California, before retiring to Yakima, where he is now active in the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. Information provided by Howard P. Cooke |
