Another Fifteen Are Home
DPAA was busy this week and has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US personnel.
From World War II
FM1c Albert U. Kane, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 24 August 2018.
FM1c Bert E. McKeeman, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 24 August 2018.
FC1c Edward J. Shelden, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 27 August 2018.
FM2c Carl D. Dorr, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 27 August 2018.
MM2c Archie T. Miles, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 24 August 2018.
RM3c Dante S. Tini, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 29 August 2018.
S1c Wesley V. Jordan, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 27 August 2018.
S1c Hale McKissack, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 27 August 2018.
S1c Richard L. Watson, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 28 August 2018.
S2c Myron K. Lehman, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 28 August 2018.
PhM3c William H. Blancheri, US Naval Reserve, assigned to HQ Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, 2nd Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force, was lost on Tarawa on 20 November 1943. He was accounted for on 24 August 2018.
SSgt Richard J. Murphy, USMC Reserve, assigned to 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, was lost on Saipan on 15 June 1944. He was accounted for on 15 August 2018. (See Note.)
Capt Lester A. Schade, USMC, assigned to Company I, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, was lost on Taiwan on 9 January 1945. He was accounted for on 15 August 2018. (See Note.)
2nd Lt. Martin F. O’Callaghan, Jr., US Army, assigned to 96th Fighter Squadron, 82nd Fighter Group, US Army Air Forces, was lost in Slovenia on 14 February 1945. He was accounted for on 24 July 2018. (See Note.)
From Korea
None
From Southeast Asia
CDR James B. Mills, US Navy, assigned to Fighter Squadron Twenty One, USS Coral Sea, was lost in Vietnam on 21 September 1966. He was accounted for on 23 August 2018.
Welcome back, elder brothers-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.
Rest easy. You’re home now.
. . .
Over 72,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,600 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; over 1,500 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA); 126 remain unaccounted for from the Cold War; 5 remain unaccounted for from the Gulf Wars; and 1 individual remains unaccounted for from Operation Eldorado Canyon. Comparison of DNA from recovered remains against DNA from some (but not all) blood relatives can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.
On their web site’s “Contact Us” page, DPAA now has FAQs. The answer to one of those FAQs describes who can and cannot submit DNA samples useful in identifying recovered remains. The chart giving the answer can be viewed here. The text associated with the chart is short and can be viewed in DPAA’s FAQs.
If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a DNA 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.
———-
Author’s Note: DPAA apparently “slip-streamed” (e.g., added well after-the-fact) entries for CPT Schade and SSgt Murphy into their “Recently Accounted For” page listing sometime during the past 2 weeks. Similarly, the entry for 2nd Lt. O’Callaghan was apparently added after-the-fact sometime during the past month.
Category: No Longer Missing
Welcome home.
May their Families, Loved Ones and Friends find comfort that these Gentlemen are finally home.
Rest In Peace, Warriors.
Welcome home Troops. The search for your other Comrades-in-Arms will continue. Thanks for your service. Thank you, again, Hondo for these updates.
Welcome Home and Rest In Peace, Fallen Warriors. You’v earned your place in History and Valhalla.
Following 2/17th Air Cav’s lead…
Great information on CDR James B. Mills, US Navy (too much to cut and paste on this post, so am sharing):
http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/m/m067.htm
James B. Mills was Hollywood handsome and a graduate of Cal Berkeley. He was a radar intercept operator on a USS Coral Sea-based Phantom when the aircraft went down on a night mission over South Vietnam 52 years ago this month. In 2011, a fisherman’s net snagged wreckage off the coast and, eventually, remains of both the pilot and Mills were recovered and identified. The news of the positive ID was something Mills’ sisters and brother had longed for but did not expect. The identification was met with great joy, perhaps most of all by one of the sisters, Ann Mills Griffiths who, since 1978, has been chairperson of the board of directors of the National League of POW/MIA Families! Happily, after decades of helping others, she herself now has closure. And Mills’ high school and community has not forgotten him. Welcome home, Jim.
https://www.bakersfield.com/multimedia/video-gallery/video-james-mills-rally-at-bakersfield-high/video_cec39f1a-ad44-11e8-8078-5bb01d85bc5b.html
Great story, Cav. Thanks.
Outstanding links and add ons AP & AC. On his 2nd tour and 149th mission. You know, we had/have some pretty damn ballsy warriors in our generation too.
Good read, and you’re right- it is detailed!
Thanks.
Welcome Home.
Two months before the end of WW II, Martin O’Callaghan was piloting his P-38 Lightning over occupied Yugoslavia. He was on a strafing run when his aircraft, nicknamed “Rusty and Marge” was hit. He attempted to put down rather than bail out but didn’t make it. Martin was from Memphis, TN and was an alumnus of Southwestern (Rhodes College). Martin was 17 in 1940 and the census for that year lists him as the eldest of four children. Their mother is listed as a businesswoman and a widow and the family resided in the home she owned on Highland street in Memphis.
Welcome home, Martin. You have not been forgotten.
William H. Blancheri, although listed above as a USMC Reservist was a Navy reservist, a corpsman, who was among the first wave at the bloody and horrific Battle of Tarawa (Beito atoll.) One source lists his pre-service residence as Los Angeles and his parents as Mr. and Mrs. Louis Charles Blancheri of Tourmaline street but I can find no corroboration for this.
Welcome home, William.
Correct. Either DPAA originally had that wrong and has since corrected it, or I screwed it up in transcription. Either way, I should have caught that during proofreading.
It’s now fixed above.
On the morning of 15 June 1944, the invasion of Saipan launched. The area designated Beach Red was overlooked by a ridge from which machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire poured down on the landing Marines. Staff Sergeant Richard J. Murphy, baby faced but battle hardened at Tarawa, was there, but the exact circumstances of his loss remain unknown. That is understandable, in view of the great losses incurred and the murderous chaos that morning at Beach Red, Saipan. Richard appears to have been a Washington D.C. native. Welcome home, Richard.
Welcome home, brothers in arms. Rest in peace,
Capt. Lester Schade was with I Company, 3d Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, in the Philippines in 1942, and taken prisoner.
“WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2018 —Marine Corps Capt. Lester A. Schade, killed during World War II, was accounted for on July 26”.
“In April 1942, Schade, a member of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, when he was captured by enemy forces and held as a prisoner of war in the Philippine Islands. On Dec. 14, 1944, more than 1,600 Allied prisoners were loaded aboard a Japanese transport en route to Japan. The ship was attacked by American carrier planes, killing a number of American prisoners. Survivors were transported aboard two other ships to Formosa, present day Taiwan, where they were loaded onto another ship, Enoura Maru, which was also attacked by American carrier planes. According to records Schade was aboard the Enoura Maru when it was attacked Jan. 9, 1945, and was listed as missing, presumed dead as a result of the incident”.
“DPAA is grateful to the Department of Veterans Affairs for their partnership in this mission”.
“Interment services are pending; more details will be released 7-10 days prior to scheduled funeral services”.
“Schade’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with the other MIAs from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for”.
https://www.rollingthunderrun.com/2018/08/marine-killed-during-world-war-ii-accounted-for-schade-l/
Well— Damn. Bad enough to be a sailor on a ship and can’t really fight back; now you’re on your 2nd POW transport that is being attacked by, unknowingly, your own side. Just Damn. Oh, and yeah, let’s not forget nearly 3 years as a POW of the Japs, err excuse me, the Japanese, didn’t mean to be raciss. Cause, you know, the Japanese treated their POW’s with such compassion.
The Japs did not mark the privately owned ships that were used to transport POWs to the mines to be used as slave labor. These floating horrors were called hell ships and for good reason. Men were packed into them and forced to endure conditions that were unspeakable. There are accounts of men hoping that they would be sunk, if you can believe it. The ships would bring in supplies, load up with POWs and head back. The private companies used the men as free labor and for decades refused to admit as much.
You’re right there AC. Had a neighbor ( passed on early ’90s) was a Bataan Survivor and had been on several of those. His daughter told me after he had passed that I was one of the few people he had ever spoke of some of that. Mr. C absolutely refused to have any “Jap” product of any sort in his home, and the lingering effects of POW ultimately led to his death. I had an uncle who island hoped with the Army in the Pacific, came home on the troop ships with some of those fellows. Uncle Jake said those fellows were in real bad shape; a number of them died on the trip home.
I was honored to know one of those men, too. In fact, when his daughter asked if I would like to meet him, I said that I was more worthy of meeting the queen of England than her father, and that I would be a lot less nervous doing so. I met with the man many times, as it turned out and he willed that his written account of his hell ship voyage not be opened until he passed. I can guess why. He was a nice and humble man who somehow got on with his life after his release. He was taken in the Philippines in 1942 and liberated in 1945.
“worthy of the Honor”; I feel ya man. Mr. C was also a very humble, unassuming gentleman, no hat, POW plates, brag, I Love Me whatevers. Had known him for several years with out knowing his history until my son got deployed for Desert Shield. He opened up a few days after the 24th shipped out. Not really sure why me, other than just the Veteran connection. Could’ve been me mentioning about my Papa in Patton’s Army or the talk about Uncle Jake’s Island hopping. He had simply stated that he was one of those. No diary kept. The one that your man has would be a fascinating read, I haven’t found a whole lot out there in print. Again, a lot of the Japanese history is either suppressed or colored over. I believe that is one reason why the Chinese have such an attitude toward the US Government. They feel we sided against them after WWII & bent over backwards to rebuild Japan. Y’all keep up the good work on the side bar add ons.
Adding this here b/c it doesn’t fit anywhere else: 73 YEARS AGO TODAY IN HISTORY: JAPAN SURRENDERED! Today, 2 September 1945, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II. By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated. At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main Japanese home islands. General Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the invasion, which was code-named “Operation Olympic” and set for November 1945. The invasion of Japan promised to be the bloodiest seaborne attack of all time, conceivably 10 times as costly as the Normandy invasion in terms of Allied casualties. On 16 July 1945, a new option became available when the US secretly detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Ten days later, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the “unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces.” Failure to comply would mean “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitable the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” On 28 July, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki responded by telling the press that his government was “paying no attention” to the Allied ultimatum. President Harry Truman ordered the devastation to proceed, and on 6 August, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 80,000 people and fatally wounding thousands more. After the Hiroshima attack, a faction of Japan’s supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. On 8 August, Japan’s desperate situation took another turn for the worse when the Soviet Union declared war against Japan. The next day, Soviet forces attacked in Manchuria, rapidly overwhelming Japanese positions there, and a second atomic bomb was dropped on… Read more »
It was generous of Russia to enter the war once the outcome was well known. s/
I’m also glad to see that Nimitz signed for the United States.
Go Navy, Beat Army.
Welcome home, men.
Rest well.