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IndyShark -> Is Colonel H. Weir Cook in the Pilot list? (8/11/2009 8:36:13 PM)
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Colonel H. Weir Cook is the namesake of the Indianapolis Airport and a very interesting man. He was a WWI ace and asked for a combat assignment in WWII. He was killed in an air crash in New Caledonia in 1943. I understand he was training pilots during the war and may have been an air base commander.
HARVEY WEIR COOK
H. Weir Cook, Date Unknown
His Name Lives on in Indianapolis
Harvey Weir Cook was born in Wilkinson, IN June 30, 1892. He died in New Caledonia on March 24, 1943 in an airplane crash while training young pilots for combat during WWII.
In between he became an ace (he was a "balloon buster") in France during WWI, was decorated with the DSC in 1918 and promoted to captain in 1919, flew air mail for the U.S. Army between Salt Lake City and Omaha, worked on the Hoffman cabin-chute for passenger transport airplanes, managed the Curtiss-Wright Flying Service base at Indianapolis, and was recalled to active service in 1941. He served as Colonel during WWII.
He landed one time at the Davis-Monthan Airfield, signing the Register on December 20, 1926. He was solo, flying a Douglas O-2C, registration number 26-10. He was eastbound from San Diego, CA to Indianapolis, and wrote in the Remarks column of the Register, "Ferrying for I.N.G." He was no doubt tasked with providing this new observation plane for the Indiana National Guard.
More information about his contributions to aviation can be found at the link in the left sidebar, and in this 2002 Indiana State Senate Resolution naming the new terminal at the Indianapolis International Airport in his honor. He held civil transport license number 4673.
Dossier 2.2.57
UPLOADED: 01/23/07 REVISED: 05/28/08
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