In our last Blast we featured a 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines scout sniper, Private Jack Kneeland. In this issue we feature another 2/5 Marine scout sniper, Gunnery Sergeant Walter Cook.

Early Years, 1889-1919

Born in Austria on 11 April 1889, the 10-year-old Wladislaw Kukulka, anglicized as Walter Cook, immigrated to the U.S. with his parents in 1899 and, taking advantage of 1918 amendments to U.S. naturalization and immigration law that made military service members eligible for citizenship, naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1919.

Military Service, 1910-19

Walter Cook grew up in Pennsylvania where he enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 20 in 1910, then reenlisted in the Marine Corps four years later on 22 January 1914. He was 25 years old. For the next three years, Private Cook served in Mexico, Cuba, and Haiti.

As a warfighter in France from June 1917 through February 1919, Private Cook was bad ass. He was recognized with a silver star for the Victory Medal on 13 June 1918 while serving as a scout sniper at the Bois de Belleau he singlehandedly laid waste to 12 German soldiers. For his actions in combat as a scout sniper near Blanc Mont, France on 6 October 1918, he received both the Navy Cross and U.S. Army Distinguished Service Cross and was promoted to Gunnery Sergeant.

His WWI combat service was extensive. In addition to the silver star at Belleau Wood and Navy Cross at Blanc Mont, Cook’s warfighting was acknowledged with four additional silver stars, three more for actions at Chateau-Thierry, France from 6 June-10 July 1918 and a fifth for action at Blanc Mont, France from 1 to 10 October 1918. He also wore the French Croix de Guerre with Three Palms. During the postwar occupation of Germany on 10 December 1918, then Captain George F. Hill recommended Cook for the Medal of Honor.

Service in WWII, 1941-45

Cook served as an engineer on the merchant vessel SS Vincent during WWII when the Imperial Japanese Navy armed merchant cruisers Aikoku Maru and Hōkoku Maru torpedoed and sunk the Vincent on 12 December 1941. Cook was a prisoner of war in China and Japan for more three years until he was freed finally in October 1945. He continued to serve as an engineer on the North Carolina class fast battleship USS Washington until his failing health forced him to retire.

Taps

Cook passed away at the age of 62 from medical issues that lingered from the starvation, disease, and abuse he experienced as a WWII prisoner of war on 8 January 1952 in Los Angeles. Survived by his wife and two children, he was laid to rest at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.