Four More From Pearl Identified
DPAA has identified and accounted for the following four formerly-missing US sailors.
• ENS Joseph P. Hittorff, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, US Navy, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 6 April 2016.
• CSK Herbert J. Hoard, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, US Navy, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 4 April 2016.
• FC1 Paul A. Nash, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, US Navy, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 5 April 2016.
• MM1 Alfred F. Wells, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, US Navy, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 7 April 2016.
Sailors, rest your oars. Our apologies that identifying you took so long.
Rest now in peace, elder brothers-in-arms.
. . .
Over 73,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,800 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; and over 1,600 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA). Comparison of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from recovered remains against mtDNA from a matrilineal descendant can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.
DPAA’s web site now has what appears to be a decent “Contact Us” page. The page doesn’t have instructions concerning who can and cannot submit a mtDNA sample or how to submit one, but the POCs listed there may be able to refer you to someone who can answer that question – or may be able to answer the question themselves. If you think you might possibly qualify, please contact one of those POCs for further information.
If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a mtDNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.
Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.
Category: No Longer Missing
Rest in peace, shipmates.
The Oklahoma lost 429 sailors and Marines on 7 December. It was struck by multiple torpedoes and strafed during the attack. Of those lost, only some three dozen were positively identified. The remainder were later interred together and the process of identifying them by DNA tests was begun only a year or so ago. The identification of these men of the USS Oklahoma is the early result of that process and remind us all of the sacrifice made by those that Sunday morning at Pearl Harbor. Their names have long been among those lost that day and their spirits are joined for eternity.
Ens. Hittorff entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis MD in June 1936, and graduated in 1940. On July 1, 1940 he reported to the West Coast for his initial assignment. He was serving aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma when it was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Trapped below deck when the ship capsized, he was one of 20 officers and 395 enlisted men to die aboard the ship that day.
Ensign Hittorff had completed all the requirements for promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade, but the commission had not come through at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.
—–
They should promote him now. The Ensign has earned it.
Holden
Welcome home brothers and rest in peace. God be with your families.
Welcome Home !!!!!!!!
Sailors
Rest Well
Salute……
Bring them all home.
Salute and Rest in Peace.
Fair winds and following seas Sailors.
Rest now, you’re home.
A prayer that they may rest in peace and may their families find closure. Also a prayer for my uncle who was serving aboard (although ashore at Mass) the USS Pennsylvania at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. He passed just a couple years ago. He never spoke about the attack except to one of his sons who has given me an oral history. May all of our departed warriors rest in peace and their memory remain with us.