The remains of two sailors killed at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack in 1941 have been identified and will be returned home for burial, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Friday.
They are Seaman 2nd Class Lewis L. Wagoner, 20, of Douglass County, Mo., who will be buried on Saturday in Whitewater, Kan.; and Navy Lt. j.g. Aloysius H. Schmitt, 32, of St. Lucas, Iowa, who will be buried Oct. 8 in Dubuque, Iowa.
Both sailors were assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft.
The battleship was hit by seven to nine Japanese torpedoes and rolled in the harbor, trapping hundreds of men inside, according to the National Park Service.
The remains of the ship’s men were buried in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in unmarked gravesites after military officials were able to identify only 35 men in 1947.
The attack on the ship resulted in 429 deaths.
In April 2015, the deputy secretary of defense issued a policy memorandum directing the disinterment of unknowns associated with the USS Oklahoma. On June 15, 2015, accounting agency personnel began exhuming the remains from Punchbowl for analysis.
In 2015, the last of the remaining sailors and Marines from the Oklahoma were disinterred, and identifications continue to be made.
