Remains from USS OKLAHOMA identified
Of the more than 2400 US service members who were killed at Pearl Harbor, 429 were from the USS OKLAHOMA. Only 35 sets of those remains were identified in the early years since the ship sank on December 7th, 1941. The Associated Press reports that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has focused on those folks and they hope to identify 80% of them in the next five years. In the meantime, they’ve identified seven;
On Monday, officials exhumed the last four of 61 caskets containing unknown people from the Oklahoma. Many of the caskets include the remains of multiple individuals.
Families will have the option of receiving remains as they are identified, or waiting until the agency has more pieces of a body or even a complete skeleton. Navy casualty officers will let families know their options.
The names of those seven will be released after the families have been identified.
The losses from the Oklahoma were second only to the loss of 1100 folks on the USS ARIZONA.
Category: We Remember
Just last year the Navy sent letters to families saying it opposed exhumation. Now this. On the one hand, I see that the men who Fell on 7 December 1941 are bonded for eternity. On the other hand, it is an individual family matter and, if possible, the families should have the option have deciding whether to leave their sailors with one another or have them returned to the mainland.
I can’t think of how to say it better 2/17 Air Cav. So I’ll let your comment speak for me if you will.
I second that, well said….
What Air Cav said.
Very heartwarming to know that the Navy still won’t forget these Sailors and Marines.
A good friend of mine is the grandson of an Oklahoma survivor. He was one of the guys who survived in her engineering spaces when she rolled over, and managed to stay alive long enough for the yard workers to cut through her hull and get him out.
That is a very lucky man. Or some would say that it wasn’t his turn yet.
I understand that feeling too.
I’m sorry to see their rest disturbed but at same time am glad that they have their honored names returned to us.
On the other side of Ford island is the wreck of the Utah. Hardly anyone goes there. There are 50 or so missing from its sinking. It’s a very lonely place.