World War II Pfc. Basil Marion Cook, 31, of Hinton, Mercer County, was killed in action while driving an M-4 Sherman tank near Hucheln, Germany, in November 1944.
Pfc. Basil Marion Cook was the 31-year-old driver of an M-4 Sherman tank engaged with German forces near Hucheln, Germany, when a land mine detonated beneath the 30-ton armored vehicle in November 1944.
World War II Pfc. Basil Marion Cook, 31, of Hinton, Mercer County, was killed in action while driving an M-4 Sherman tank near Hucheln, Germany, in November 1944.
Courtesy photo
The ensuing explosion "is believed to have killed Cook instantaneously," . "His remains were not immediately recovered or identified after the fighting."
Cook, who served in the U.S. Army, was initially listed as missing in action.
Nearly four years after Cook's tank exploded, the , tasked with recovering missing American personnel in Europe, conducted a search for the remains of GIs in the Hucheln area, according to the DPAA. Town residents were interviewed, but none reported seeing — or hearing about — the remains of American soldiers being found in the area.
Seventy-two years later, in 2020, a DPAA historian researching unresolved American losses in the Hucheln area learned that one set of unidentified remains had been recovered from a burned-out tank 1 mile northeast of Hucheln in August 1945 that possibly were Cook's.
The remains, which had been buried in the , an American Battle Monuments Commission site at Margraten, Netherlands, were disinterred and sent to a DPAA laboratory for analysis. Â
The remains were determined to belong to the missing soldier late last year, using:
An anthropological analysis
Circumstantial evidence
A comparison of mitochondrial DNA from a bone or tooth fragment from the remains that was compared to a sample from a maternal relative of Cook
Who was Basil Marion Cook?
Cook, a native of Bertha, in Summers County, entered the Army on Dec. 9, 1943, received training as a tank crew member at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and was assigned to duty in Europe in July 1944, serving in England, Belgium and Germany. Prior to entering the Army, Cook worked at the Hercules Powder Co. plant in Radford, Virginia.Â
In addition to his wife, Ila Ruth Cook, Cook left behind his parents, Harvey and Mary Elizabeth Cook, sisters Lessie McClung, Bessie Ellis, Eleanor Bandy and Mamie Taylor, and brother Homer Cook, none of whom are still alive.
Relatives surviving include nephews Richard "Dickie" Cook and Larry Cook, both of Princeton, and nieces Phyllis Honaker of Twinsburg, Ohio, and Pat Ferber of Forest Park, Georgia.
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