The surviving crewmen were in the water for fifteen hours before navy seaplanes arrived to rescue them, hindered by heavy enemy fire. Still firing, the Cooper heeled over on its side and broke in half and sank in less than a minute. The Cooper had opened fire on a second Japanese ship when it was hit on the starboard side by a Japanese torpedo. Spying a Japanese destroyer carrying troops, the Cooper opened fire along with the other vessels, destroying the enemy ship.

They encountered enemy aircraft on the evening of December 2, and the Cooper shot one down.

On November 29, the USS Cooper joined the Seventh Fleet and, three days later, was ordered to move against Ormoc Bay with the destroyers USS Allen M. The destroyer served with the Third Fleet and was involved in minor operations, including the rescue of a downed pilot twenty miles from Luzon in the Philippines. The Cooper arrived at Pearl Harbor on September 4, 1944, with Commander Mell A. The vessel was commissioned on March 27, 1944, under Commander J. It was armed with six 5-inch 38-caliber guns, ten 21-inch quintuple-mount torpedo tubes, and 40-mm antiaircraft batteries. The Cooper weighed 2,200 tons, was 376 feet and six inches long and forty feet and ten inches wide, and could reach speeds exceeding 35 knots. at Kearney, New Jersey, and Cooper’s widow christened the ship with a bottle of champagne on February 9, 1944. The USS Cooper’s keel was laid on August 30, 1943, at the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. The Monticello native was selected to have a DD-695 ship named after him. Navy pilot and was serving on the aircraft Carrier USS Langley when, during fleet maneuvers off southern California, he was aboard one of two seaplanes that collided in mid-air on February 2, 1938, killing nine men. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating 476 th in a class of 579 in 1927, and was retained for aviation instruction that summer. He married Francis Vivian Lewis Sigmon in 1928. The Cooper sank on December 3, 1944, after being struck by a torpedo during a surface engagement at Ormoc Bay.Įlmer Glenn Cooper was born on May 9, 1905, in Monticello, to the farming family of James O. Navy destroyer in World War II named for Monticello (Drew County) native Elmer Glenn Cooper.

Down by Glenn Cooper