• Oct. 25, 1910 – March 1. 1942
• College of Medicine – 1938
• 1st Lt – Navy
  • Enlisted in 1939
• Lost his life when his destroyer was sunk south of Java
• Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines

Alton Coleman Bookout (Oct. 25, 1910 – March 1, 1942) was born in Dallas, Texas. He attended Western Military Academy in Illinois in 1928 and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Oklahoma from 1932 to 1935. Bookout then attended the University of Tennessee’s College of Medicine, graduating with a medical degree in 1938. He enlisted in the United States Naval Reserves in 1939 and was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant. 

1st Lt. Bookout was originally at stationed as a medical officer and doctor at the U.S. Naval hospital in Portsmouth City, Virginia in 1940, but was transferred to the Pacific in 1941. He served as the medical doctor on board the USS Pillsbury, a destroyer-class ship anchored at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941, the USS Pillsbury was already out on patrol near Borneo and joined forces with other US, Dutch, and Australian vessels in and around Indonesia against the Japanese invasion force. In February, the ship was organized into the defense of Java and the Badoeng Strait, sinking a Japanese destroyer on February 20th. They continued a strike and retreat method against the numerically superior Japanese naval forces until it was caught on March 1, 1942 by a task force that included four battleships, five cruisers, and aircraft carriers which included the Soryu. It was sunk alongside the USS Asheville and Edsall south of Java and east of Christmas Island with no survivors found. 1st Lt. Alton C. Bookout is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines.

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