Willard Haul "Jack" Coop was born in April 1924 in Sulphur, Kentucky. He grew up with two younger sisters. His family moved to Hoopeston, Illinois when he was a baby. Coop was out rabbit hunting with a friend one Sunday morning. When they returned to the car, they turned on the radio and learned that Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] had been attacked. The news did not mean much to Coop because he did not know the location of Pearl Harbor. Coop went to enlist in the Marine Corps but was denied for having a bad heart. He went to the Army to enlist and was accepted. He was sent to Camp Grant for induction in Rockville, Illinois and then to Fort Sill [Annotator's Note: Fort Sill in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma] for basic training for field artillery for 13 weeks. He was trained on the 105 Howitzer [Annotator's Note: M2A1 105mm howitzer; standard light field howitzer]. After completion he was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky. He decided he wanted to join the Army Air Corps and applied. He passed the physical and mental tests. He was then sent to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi [Annotator's Note: Biloxi, Mississippi] for another round of basic training. He was ranked as a corporal and paid 66 dollars a month. After training completion, he was sent to college to take some general courses. He contracted an illness and ended up spending several weeks in the hospital. When he finally was discharged from the hospital, he was six weeks behind from his class. He was given the option to go to gunnery school in Las Vegas [Annotator's Note: Las Vegas, Nevada]. He was then sent to radio school but did not like it and did not pass the program. He then was trained as the ball turret gunner and was shipped to England, where he joined 418th Bombardment Squadron, 100th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force in January 1945. He flew 31 missions over Europe. After the war concluded in Europe, he was sent home for a 30-day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] before being shipped to Japan. He took a trip with his pilot, pilot's wife, and two other crew members to Yellowstone National Park [Annotator's Note: American national park in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho] and onto the base at Santa Ana, California. When he reached the base, he was told he had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out of the service, so he decided to leave instead of going to Japan. He was discharged and returned to Hoopeston. He met and married his wife. He decided to re-enlist in the Air Force and was sent to various places, included being reactivated for the Korean War in December 1954 [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He stayed in Korea for a year. After he returned, he was stationed at several places in the West and then was sent to Hawaii for three years where he led the drafting section. He was then sent to Langley Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: in Hampton, Virginia]. His hearing became bad, so he decided it was time to retire. His wife died of a heart attack when she was 76. He moved to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.

Willard Haul "Jack" Coop joined the 418th Bombardment Squadron, 100th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force in January 1945 and flew 30 missions over Germany. On his first mission he was very nervous, and he accidentally put his bolt switches on backwards on his machine gun. On his second mission, his plane was shot up badly and began losing gas. They left their squadron to find a place to land. They found an airfield and the pilot had to land it on the belly because the wheels would not come done. They landed safely. Luckily, they had landed in American occupied territory and were greeted by some American troops who took Coop and his crew back to their encampment. The troops brought Coop and his crew to a night club in a nearby town in Belgium. Three days later, Coop and his crew were picked up and brought back to their base in England to rejoin their group. They used his plane as scrap to make a new plane that was named "Silver Dollar." His missions were to go into Germany and bomb strategic military installations, railroads yards, and oil refineries. Two of his missions were to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. He also flew to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] and Bremen [Annotator's Note: Bremen, Germany]. On one mission he hit a German Me-262 jet fighter [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft] and after a small explosion behind the cockpit, it disappeared into a cloudbank. He never received credit for his kill. He also encountered Me-109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft] during his missions. The flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] could be so thick, that it looked as though he could walk on it. The shrapnel punched holes in the plane, but the ground crew patched up the holes. No one ever got hurt on the plane except when they crash landed in Belgium, and one of the gunners hurt his knee. The hardest missions he had were bombing targets in Frankfurt and Dresden [Annotator's Note: Dresden, Germany] because they got attacked by flak and fighters. He watched his friend in another plane go down after anti-aircraft blew the plane's wing off. Coop had to fire his guns in short bursts so his guns would not jam up. He had a girlfriend that was a disc jockey at a radio station back at home. She often spoke to him over the radio and dedicated songs to him. Coops stayed with the same crew throughout his overseas deployment. When he returned home, his crew all discharged at the same time because they all had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. One of his gunners was 45 years old. Coop was the youngest member in his crew.

Willard Haul "Jack" Coop [Annotator's Note: with the 418th Bombardment Squadron, 100th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force in England] was debriefed after each mission. He was interrogated on what he saw on the ground, any anti-aircraft, or enemy planes. He would convey if the bombs hit the target or if it missed. During his time off, he went to the NCO [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officer] club or go into town. He dated a girl in England. He had a hard time understanding what the locals were saying. His last mission was to drop supplies into Holland [Annotator's Note: Holland, Netherlands]. His plane had to fly low, and he could see people running towards the target area because they wanted the supplies. He felt a lot better dropping supplies, than dropping bombs and killing people.

After World War 2, Willard Haul Coop re-enlisted and went to Korea for one year during the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He supervised the carpenter shop with several Koreans. The Koreans were very crafty and used the tools they had to make good products. Coop did not use the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] for education but used it to buy land and build a house.

Willard Haul "Jack" Coop's most memorable experience of World War 2 was VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. He was in a pub in England and people began to announce the war was over. The bartender closed up the bar so MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] could not come in looking for servicemen and bought everyone in the bar round of drinks. Everyone in the bar and celebrated the end of war. Coop served in the military because he did not want to be left out and wanted to get into some action. Joining the military changed his life for the better. He traveled and saw other cultures that he would not have otherwise. When he returned home, he went to work at a canning company. There were German prisoners working there too. He supervised four of them and got along with them very well. Coop did not stay long at the canning company and moved to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] to find a job. He found a work for nine months and then re-enlisted into the Army Air Corps. [Annotator's Note: Video break at 1:01:29.000.]. Coop had received many medical benefits for his military service. Any young man that does not know what he wants to do, he should join the service. Many Americans do not know much about World War 2, especially the younger generations. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and they should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations. It needs to be remembered. Every war should be remembered. When the Dust Bowl [Annotator's Note: The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s] happened, the dust was really thick. The Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] helped him learn to save properly. America needs to get back with God for the younger generations.