USS Oklahoma Sailors Finally Being Identified

[mekender]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/10/re ... dentified/

I had no idea that they did not ID almost all of the remains...

[Aesop]

Most of the remains translated into fish food 73+ years ago, trapped inside the rusting hulk and decomposing ever since.

[Langenator]

Oklahoma's dead were removed when the ship was raised in 1943.

The only ships sunk at Pearl Harbor who's dead were left aboard were the Arizona and the Utah.

[Aesop]

Right, but the bodies in question were almost certainly remains recovered from above the waterline.
Anything organic below that level, after 12-24 months in 0-30' of tropical lagoon was rendered into crab food long before the ship was salvaged.
You'd find nothing much but leather shoes, brass dog tags, and denim dungarees. Piles of assorted bones, perhaps, depending on how long they last in 75-80 degree water teeming with marine life.
I shudder to think of the nightmares of the recovery crews afterwards who hauled out whatever they did recover and eventually identify.
I'm equally certain given the sensibilities of the time that the Navy shipped a lot of coffins filled with nothing but sandbags or bricks to the local cemetery afterwards, especially amidst a war that was far from over.

[Langenator]

If I read the wiki correctly, the remains of the over 400 sailors killed on theOklahoma (what they found/recovered of them) were buried in just over 60 caskets in graves marked Unknown: USS Oklahoma.

When you bury the dead where they fell, there's no need to present a sealed casket filed with rocks to the family.

That's what they're now sorting and trying to ID.

[First Shirt]

Whatever.

Fair winds and following seas! G-d see you to your rest.

If you've ever been to the Arizona Memorial, you'll understand.

[randy]

Fair winds and following seas! G-d see you to your rest.

If you've ever been to the Arizona Memorial, you'll understand.

Amen!

[mekender]

Right, but the bodies in question were almost certainly remains recovered from above the waterline.

The best I can find is that as soon as the first torpedos hit, general quarters was sounded... And the CO's report stated that the watertight doors were closed at 1700 the night before, so it stands to reason that there were likely compartments below the waterline that did not flood. Still, with her capsizing in something like 10 minutes, I would guess that many of the dead suffered their injuries in that process.

[Aesop]

Watertight doors are only watertight for awhile. Not a year or years.
Capsizing makes a new waterline.
Torpedos and hydraulic pressure tend to make a hash of early 20th century steelwork, let alone watertight integrity.
That's how the remains of 400 would only amount to enough to put into 60 caskets.
The rest was long gone by 1943.

But with only 15% (if that) of the casualties' remains available to work with, there's only so much you can do.
"Missing:lost at sea" means exactly that, even in a harbor.
Good on the Navy &c.: I'm glad they've made the effort with what they have.
The gesture is far more meaningful than the actual results.

Nota bene you hear of no similar efforts from other countries related to their millennia of misadventures.

[Old Grafton]

In his book Descent Into Darkness U.S. Navy salvage diver Cdr. E.C.Raymer USN(ret'd) describes the salvage operations at Pearl Harbor after the attack; he was personally involved IIRC in the salvage of all those capital ships sunk there. His description of the one early attempt on the Arizona to bring sailors' remains to the surface months post-attack was pretty grim. Only 45 or so bodies were recovered and none were identifiable; all were buried ashore and the effort ended there. Oklahoma remains (bones) were dug out of the muck on decks and placed in canvas bags approximately 200 each, given appropriate honors and buried ashore, Identification was impossible at the time. Grim, grim. Dust to dust. God rest them all.