Local Pearl Harbor vet honored today

HOUSTON But Willie Cook was too ill to travel to the ceremony at the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg. So Memorial Hermann Hospital decided to bring the ceremony to him.

Cook, 91, was a radio operator and was on the bridge of the U.S.S. West Virginia when Japanese planes arrived.

"I was standing on the topside of the deck and bombs were going off around me," said Willie Cook.

He was actually thrown into the water and picked up by a hospital ship. He wasn't identified until three weeks later.

Cook's parents actually held a funeral before discovering their son was alive.

The surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,402 people.