“It was almost like he was here because we talked about him a lot,” Aggie Cox Cooper told WSPA.
Aggie was only 26 days old when her mother received word that the submarine, the USS Grayback, her older brother, Lee Roy Cox of South Carolina, was serving on had been reported missing.
“We wanted to know what happened, but our hope was of course, you always have this little hope…that he’ll come home alive.”
The year was 1944.
Recently, Aggie heard the news she and her family wished to hear for so long—her brother’s missing submarine had been found.
“I burst out crying,” she said. “And I cried. And I cried. And I cried.”
The WWII submarine was discovered in June off the coast of Okinawa, Japan at a depth of 1,400 feet.
Lost 52 Project, a project dedicated to locating the 52 submarines lost during WWII, found the USS Grayback using an underwater drone and sonar.
The Grayback and its sailors were responsible for sinking more than a dozen enemy ships. Japanese intelligence suggests that on February 26, 1944, a plane dropped a bomb on top of the submarine. The submarine and the 80 sailors onboard sunk.
When Aggie learned that her brother and the Grayback had been found she was overwhelmed.
“I was just overwhelmed, and still, I lie in bed and wonder if it’s really true,” she said.
Of the 52 missing submarines, seven have been found.
Seventy-five years later Aggie and her family received the closure they had hoped for for decades.
Pass this on if you wish for all missing soldiers to be found.
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