Capt. Cooper was born 21 May 1918, the son of a doctor and housewife in Cooter, MO. Vanderbilt Medical School, class of 1942. Married Elma Valentine of Colfax, LA, an R.N. he met at Vanderbilt, in October, 1942. Went on active Army duty 2 July, 1943. Sailed for England in September, 1943 and eventually joined the 262nd Ordnance Battalion as medical officer assigned to Headquarters Company. The 262nd ran Ordnance Depot 100 just behind the beach at Normandy in July 1944 and later moved with the Armies across France and Belgium and into Germany, ending at the Hohenbrunn Ammunition Depot. CPT Cooper died in an accidental drowning on June 6, 1945 at midafternoon in the Kastenseeoner See in a recreational accident. He was buried first at a U.S. Military Cemetery, Reuth, Germany and later was reinterred at St. Avold in France, where he stayed until the spring of 1949. He was eventually repatriated to Cooper, Missouri.