Tim Cook, the Canadian War Museum's chief historian and the country's “preeminent military historian,” has died, the museum said Sunday.
Cook was a “passionate ambassador” for both the museum and Canadian military history, and his contributions to the Ottawa Museum over the past two-plus decades have been “tremendous,” museum president and CEO Caroline Dromagete said in a statement.
According to the museum, Cook published more than 19 books and received numerous awards, including four Ottawa Book Awards for non-fiction.
In his 2022 book Life Savers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Fight for Survival in the Great War, Cook uncovered evidence that Canadian doctors were involved in a British program to harvest organs from dead World War I soldiers without obtaining consent.
“I saw bits of it in doctors' letters and diaries, but I could hardly believe it,” Cook told CBC at the time. “It's not in any of our history books. It's not part of our history of how we treated the fallen.”
His other notable works included Nowhere to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War And A Necessary War, Volume 1: Canadians Fight in the Second World War: 1939–1943..
Both received the CP Stacey Award, presented by annually the best book in the field of Canadian military history.
Order of Canada
Late last year, Cook published Good alliesdeep dive into relations between the USA and Canada during World War II.
“When I wrote the book, I kept thinking that there are lessons [for] Today. We're still trying to figure out, “How do we work with the United States?” How do we succeed and at the same time take control of our sovereignty? ” Cook said in an interview with CBC radio. All in a day in November 2024.
“The discussion is over two percent of defense spending and other questions… always with us. And yet we were good allies.”
Cook's many honors also included receiving the Governor General's Historical Award and being named to the Order of Canada.
Cook was 54 years old. The museum did not disclose the cause of his death.
