WW2 Bougainville Fallen - Silver Star hero Raymond Cooper, 37th Infantry Division

Sgt. Raymond Cooper earned the Silver Star while serving with the 37th Infantry Division in Bougainville.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11239011/raymond-t-cooper
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/78/ba/f878ba9e4fc5d3cf82a9dbe52b94ada3.jpg

Raymond T. Cooper never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, I invite you to help write some!  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database.  Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

Raymond was born on February 15, 1920 in Illinois. His parents Thomas and Gladys were also both born in Illinois. His father worked as a lumberyard truck driver and later as a lumberyard foreman. Raymond had one younger sister. By 1940 Raymond had completed two years of high school and was still living at home. 

He enlisted in the Illinois National Guard which led to enlistment in the US Army in March 1941. He reached the rank of sergeant in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 129th Infantry Regiment which was attached to the 37th Infantry Division.

The 37th ID first saw action in New Guinea in the summer of 1943. It's next assignment was Bougainville where it began fighting the Japanese in November 1943. By March 1944 the Americans had established a perimeter that was three to four miles deep. 

The Japanese committed 15,000 troops to try to break the American lines. On March 9, they took Hill 700 and Cannon Hill. The 37th ID recaptured them on March 12. The Japanese made additional attempts to break through on March 12, March 15, and March 17, all without success. Sgt. Copper was killed in action during the March 15, 1944 attack.

Sgt. Cooper's gravestone shows he was awarded the Silver Star. I was not able to find the citation.

His grave is at Diamond Lake Cemetery in Diamond Lake, Illinois.

Thank you Sgt. Cooper for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Raymond.

Last year on this date I profiled B-29 pilot Harold Kinreed. You can read about Harold here.

On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org