Other Personnel in Incident: Patrick K. Connor (missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 09 March 1991 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, published sources, interviews. Update 2002 POW NETWORK.

REMARKS: OPERATION DESERT STORM

SYNOPSIS:

The Grumman A6 Intruder is a two-man, all weather, low-altitude, carrier based attack plane, with versions adapted as aerial tanker and electronic warfare platform. The A6A primarily flies close air support, all
weather and night attacks on enemy troop concentrations, and night interdiction missions. Its advanced navigation and attack system allows small precision targets, such as bridges, barracks and fuel depots to be
located and attacked in all weather conditions, day or night. Their crews are among the most talented and most courageous to serve the United States.

Lieutenant Commander Barry T. Cooke and Lieutenant (jg) Patrick Connor are Intruder pilots assigned
to Attack Squadron 36 (the "Roadrunners") onboard the USS ROOSEVELT in the Persian Gulf. The Squadron's home base is at Oceana Naval Station, Norfolk, Virginia.

On February 2, 1991, the Intruder on which Cooke was the pilot and Connor the co-pilot, was shot down off the coast of Kuwait during a strike mission against Iraqi warships. Cooke and Connor were declared Missing in Action.

Search and rescue efforts were conducted for five days and then suspended, without having found the missing airmen. Aircraft wreckage was located in the water off Kuwait City, and according to one Connor family friend, the Navy changed the status of the airmen to lost at sea. However, Pentagon spokesmen, as of February 7, still list the two as Missing in Action. Connor's family, who has been intervied by various media, has hope that the
two were able to eject safely and survive or be captured.

Barry T. Cooke was a native of Austin, Texas and was a 1973 graduate of Austin McCallum High School. He was married, and he and wife, Letitia, and their three children lived in Virginia.

On 2 February 1991, VA-36 suffered the combat loss of an A-6E intruder, shot down off Faylaka Island, and its crew, Lieutenant Patrick K. Conner and Leiutenant Commander Barry T. Cooke. The other was an F/A-18 and its pilot, lost at sea while returning from an overland strike mission.  They flew from the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71).