USS Oklahoma sailor returns home 75 years after Pearl Harbor

Lewis Lowell Wagoner

Lewis Lowell Wagoner was a 20 year-old sailor serving on the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked December 7, 1941.  He was last seen by a shipmate when they jumped off the capsizing ship, into flames on the surface of water from leaking fuel and oil.  It took the Navy 2 years to retrieve all the bodies from the USS Oklahoma, most of them unidentified and laid in a mass grave.

In 2015, the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency started exhuming bodies from grave sites and caskets.  Wagoner was identified from DNA samples submitted by surviving family members and his remains will be shipped home to Kansas.

The agency expects to identify 80% of the Oklahoma's unknown sailors by 2020.




http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20161006/f868db17-0656-4a43-99d4-8f5f13db7b9a

Book review - "Trapped at Pearl Harbor" by Stephen Bower Young

During a recent trip to Hawai'i, we visited the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma memorials on Ford Island.  Of course, I had to peruse the book section in the museum store and found Stephen Bower Young's Trapped at Pearl Harbor: Escape from Battleship Oklahoma.

Young was just 19 years old, serving on the USS Oklahoma, when the Japanese attacked December 7, 1941. He became trapped when the battleship capsized.

Young reported to his battle station in Turret No.4 when the attack came.  As the ship rolled over, he watched shipmates get crushed by 1400lb projectiles and some fall into the water and disappear.

Fortunately, most of us will never know the horror of being trapped in an upside-down ship with water rising and air getting stale.  Young describes his desperate situation with his shipmates as they waited in the darkness, wondering if anyone knew they were there, wondering if they would suffocate before drowning. He talks about the feelings of panic and despair among the trapped sailors as the hours ticked away.  After more than 24 hours, Young and his shipmates were finally rescued.

Young talks about the Oklahoma's crew, their relationships, who got along with who and who didn't.  It appears that for the most part, the comrades in arms got along well with each other, which helped when trying to keep hopes up while they were trapped.

I really enjoyed reading this book, because I had wondered what was going on in the minds of those sailors while they waited rescue.  It is always best to get information like this from someone else's first hand experience.

USS Oklahoma Memorial

The USS Oklahoma Memorial, commemorating the 429 lives lost during the attack, the second highest loss of life suffered by Pacific Fleet warships.

The marble columns, one for each of the sailors lost, represent "manning the rails".  As Navy vessels pass through Pearl Harbor, sailors and marines stand at attention along the ships' railing.  

Battleship Oklahoma BB-37 by Jeff Phister with Thomas Hone and Paul Goodyear

It’s difficult to dramatize history and non-fiction, because in some cases there is more drama and action in the story that no more can be added. That much is true for just about anything written about the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The sailors on board the USS Oklahoma when she capsized after being hit by at least eight torpedoes had no shortage of drama, action and terror. Over four hundred men lost their lives on the battleship that horrible day.

Jeff Phister and Thomas Hone teamed up with USS Oklahoma survivor Paul Goodyear write Battleship Oklahoma, BB-37, which appears to be the most comprehensive account of the tragedy from the sailors’ point of view to date.

Phister, Hone and Goodyear interviewed dozens of living survivors to recount a minute-by-minute timeline of the event starting at 7:55am when the attack began until the last man was rescued from the hull over two days later.

The authors recreate the men’s movements and their escape from the Oklahoma based on their positions in the ships. In successive chapters, they chronicle the men on deck, then below decks and finally the lower decks and the hull. When the attack began, many men fled for cover below decks as they had been trained to do during an aerial attack. Another protocol required the hatches to be sealed, which in turn sealed the fate of many men in the belly of the ship. By the time it was realized that the Japanese were using torpedoes, it was too late. The Oklahoma had been hit twice and was starting to list.

Some of the accounts get graphic as one survivor witnessed nine of his fellow sailors crushed by artillery as it rolled out of its spot when the Oklahoma tilted. Others watched friends drown, unable to save them. Two men were asphyxiated by toxic fumes created by cutting torches when a rescue crew ignored warnings of cork lining the room where the men were trapped.

It took over two years to right the Oklahoma and get her afloat so she could be towed into dry dock. During the latter months of her salvage as she was being patched to pump water out of her lower decks, the crews had to deal with the bodies of the sailors submerged for so long. Each one had to be treated with utmost care. Of the 429 who died, 380 still remain unidentified. Thirteen bodies have never been found.

With advances being made in DNA research and testing, efforts continue to identify the fallen sailors so they can be given a proper burial.

Battleship Oklahoma BB-37 is moving tribute to all those aboard her on the day in infamy.

Third Day - USS Oklahoma

I have wanted to visit the USS Oklahoma Memorial since it opened a couple of years ago. It is located on Ford Island just outside the USS Missouri Battleship Museum.

On the list of sailors who were lost on the USS Oklahoma when she capsized, I found Francis E. Dick. This is my grandmother's maiden name so he could be a relative. I'll have to find out.

No one was going to sell her for scrap. She was a typical Oklahoma woman and too proud to end up like that. She rests peacefully at the bottom of the ocean.

Each post stands for a fallen sailor.

The U.S. Flag over the memorial.