His appearance at West Point was not the result of some deep-seated urge, but rather the result of a company bulletin board announcement asking enlisted men to compete for a place in the Army Prep School at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. His age gave him only one chance to compete for an appointment. At the prep school, under tutelage of two officers and two sergeants, Rabbit survived the three cuts as the school pared down to those few who might make it. In the spring of 1939 we all boarded the Army transport, sailed to San Francisco, had one all-night farewell party at the Saint Francis Hotel, and went our various ways, to meet again on 1 July and in Beast Barracks.

West Point provided no academic terrors for Jim Brook. He easily stood in the top fifty for the first years, showing a particular aptitude for electronics. In fact, our yearbook makes mention of his talent and love for things electrical. The Signal Corps was his chosen branch when disaster struck. In a commissioning physical, Jim was found to have a heart problem, which kept him from being commissioned. For the rest of his life, he always regretted not having been able to serve in uniform. In later years his tour in Vietnam as team leader from the Electronics Command brought him intense satisfaction and a feeling of repaying the West Point experience. It also helped with college payments as the children reached that stage of life.

Sticking close to his home base in New Jersey, Jim started with RCA as an electrical engineer designing airborne transmitters. Then came General Instrument Corporation and Bendix. Along with some postgraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and Stevens Institute, Jim worked on early computers and aircraft controls, with a specialty in avionics/navigation. At a cocktail party in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Jim met his roommate’s date — Carolyn Kerr — and married her in 1948. They were to have two daughters (Olivia and Valerie) and three sons (Rodney, Hilary, and Quentin). It was a happy marriage of almost 40 years.

Jim Brook continued to lead a full life as an electronics engineer. By our 25th Reunion he had registered 12 patents, six of them internationally. His proudest achievement, one that came early in his career, was helping develop the airborne radar, AN/ARC-1. Part way through his career he left private industry and joined the Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth. It was from there that he spent nine months at Long Binh in Vietnam, heading a research and development team for General Van Harlingen. In all, he served in the Electronics Command from December 1967 until 1 July 1987, when his health began to fail.

Jim was hit by two blows in the late 1980s. First, his beloved wife Carolyn died. In typical fashion, he invited her mother into his home for her final days; she was to die in early 1987. Then he was diagnosed with incurable cancer, which over two years finally affected his head and eyesight. Yet he was lucid and feisty until the end, cared for by his sons at home. He died in November 1988, proud of his scientific record and his achievements for the benefit of his country. In a eulogy at his funeral, a neighbor said,

“One of his gifts to us was his humor . . . His incisive wit brought the ridiculous into focus . . . He liked to present himself as tough and unsentimental, but somehow a lot of orphan cats got room and board at the Brook house . . . Jim was not a gushy father, but he was really so proud of his family . . . and got a kick out of seeing in his children traits they acquired from him . . . How much he missed Carolyn these last few years, and how proud he was of her — of her intelligence, her sense of humor, her Betty Davis sophistication . . . Jim was proof that Liberal and Patriotic are not mutually exclusive . . . Working for the truth was what was important to Jim Brook . . . That’s his legacy to all of us.

Jim is survived by his five children, and by the six grandsons born to Olivia and Valerie. He also is survived by his sister Nora, wife of Landon Witt, USMA ’40; by his sister Jule Fox; and by his brother Joseph.

— A fellow soldier from Hawaii