[Newsbot]

Title: U.S. plans to exhume, identify hundreds killed in Pearl Harbor
Category: Uncle Sam
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2015-04-15 18:16:35

[Freakinoldguy]

An extremely meaningful gesture unfortunately, I think that given the criteria for identification there will still be an extremely large number of families that will never find out exactly where their relatives lay.

Call me sentimental but IMO the only thing that would be proper is if they leave the remains of the identified buried with their shipmates.

The families may have originally wanted the remains returned home but, decades have passed so, by leaving them interred where they are it will ensure they'll never be forgotten by a grateful nation, proper honours can be paid and the graves can be maintained in perpetuity. Something unlikely to happen if they're re interred in a local Civilian Cemetery.

[Regina]

Don't know the US limits on family rights to have military remains moved. Would have thought that Arlington would have been the only other cemetery they would move them to. As an outsider I would like to have them stay where they are, but every family is different. Identifying them and changing headstones I think is good though.

[BartSimpson]

This is a cultural thing in the US military and even when soldiers from the wars of the 18th century are found every effort is made to identify them and notify their closest living kin. And for the dead from Pearl Harbor many of them have living children and even spouses who would find solace and closure in the certain knowledge that their loved one has been found and finally laid to rest.

[Regina]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

This is a cultural thing in the US military and even when soldiers from the wars of the 18th century are found every effort is made to identify them and notify their closest living kin. And for the dead from Pearl Harbor many of them have living children and even spouses who would find solace and closure in the certain knowledge that their loved one has been found and finally laid to rest.

Identified and remain in their grave or identified and moved to another location? At first I was thinking of those who remain on the Arizona but I think these were ones that were buried after the attack but unidentified. Would families have the right to have them removed to another cemetery?

[BartSimpson]

Regina Regina:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

This is a cultural thing in the US military and even when soldiers from the wars of the 18th century are found every effort is made to identify them and notify their closest living kin. And for the dead from Pearl Harbor many of them have living children and even spouses who would find solace and closure in the certain knowledge that their loved one has been found and finally laid to rest.

Identified and remain in their grave or identified and moved to another location? At first I was thinking of those who remain on the Arizona but I think these were ones that were buried after the attack but unidentified. Would families have the right to have them removed to another cemetery?

Yes, the families would have the right to have their loved ones reburied at a place of their choosing.

With the Arizona it is a grave and the resting place is known to the families.

But the Oklahoma was raised and was then "accidentally" sunk while on her way to the breakers. A consensus of the people I knew at Newport believe it was sunk on the orders of President Truman. If so, I support him 100%.

With the Oklahoma there were all manner of body parts recovered and some may have belonged to those who survived. Sorting it all out with modern tech is the right thing to do.

[Regina]

$1:

In May 1947, a two-tug towing operation began to move the hull of the Oklahoma from Pearl Harbor to the scrapyard in San Francisco Bay. However, disaster struck on 17 May when the ships entered a storm more than 500 miles (800 km) from Hawaii. The tug Hercules put her searchlight on the former battleship, revealing that she had begun listing heavily. After radioing the naval base at Pearl Harbor, both tugs were instructed to turn around and head back to port. But suddenly, without warning, the Hercules was pulled back past the Monarch, which was being dragged backwards at 15 knots herself. The Oklahoma had begun to sink straight down causing water to swamp the sterns of both tugs.

Fortuitously both tug skippers, Kelly Sprague of the Hercules and George Anderson of the Monarch, had loosened their cable drums which connected the 1,400 feet (430 m) tow lines to the Oklahoma. As the battleship rapidly sank, the line from the Monarch quickly played out releasing the tug. However the Hercules '​ cables didn't release until the last possible moment, leaving her tossing and pitching above the grave of the sunken Oklahoma. The ship's exact location is unknown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oklahoma_%28BB-37%29

I'm not sure the crews of Hercules and Monarch would like the sinking to be termed "accidental."

[BartSimpson]

Regina Regina:

$1:

In May 1947, a two-tug towing operation began to move the hull of the Oklahoma from Pearl Harbor to the scrapyard in San Francisco Bay. However, disaster struck on 17 May when the ships entered a storm more than 500 miles (800 km) from Hawaii. The tug Hercules put her searchlight on the former battleship, revealing that she had begun listing heavily. After radioing the naval base at Pearl Harbor, both tugs were instructed to turn around and head back to port. But suddenly, without warning, the Hercules was pulled back past the Monarch, which was being dragged backwards at 15 knots herself. The Oklahoma had begun to sink straight down causing water to swamp the sterns of both tugs.

Fortuitously both tug skippers, Kelly Sprague of the Hercules and George Anderson of the Monarch, had loosened their cable drums which connected the 1,400 feet (430 m) tow lines to the Oklahoma. As the battleship rapidly sank, the line from the Monarch quickly played out releasing the tug. However the Hercules '​ cables didn't release until the last possible moment, leaving her tossing and pitching above the grave of the sunken Oklahoma. The ship's exact location is unknown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oklahoma_%28BB-37%29

I'm not sure the crews of Hercules and Monarch would like the sinking to be termed "accidental."

Not saying I believe or disbelieve the notion. Just that it's out there.

[Jabberwalker]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

This is a cultural thing in the US military and even when soldiers from the wars of the 18th century are found every effort is made to identify them and notify their closest living kin. And for the dead from Pearl Harbor many of them have living children and even spouses who would find solace and closure in the certain knowledge that their loved one has been found and finally laid to rest.

We have ten and a half thousand of our young men feeding the barley and sugar beet crops of Flanders, mostly blown to small bits and never to be recovered.