Posted on 06/13/2010 11:43:20 AM PDT by americanophile
HANCOCK, Mich. A Michigan sailor whose remains were identified nearly 70 years after he died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has been laid to rest in his home state. More than 130 friends and relatives of U.S. Navy Fireman Third Class Gerald G. Lehman filled a Hancock church Saturday for the funeral. Lehman was later buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Houghton. Lehman's nephew, John Herres, called his uncle's return home for burial "a joyous day." Herres was six years old when his uncle died at age 18 when Japanese planes sank the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
RIP.
Navy Fireman 3rd Class Gerald G. Lehman, of Hancock, Mich., died Dec. 7, 1941 with 429 other sailors and Marines aboard the USS Oklahoma when multiple torpedo hits capsized the battleship in the harbor.
Following the attack, 36 of the dead were identified and the remaining 393, including Lehman, were buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Lehmans remains were identified after an independent researcher contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in 2003 with information that one of the USS Oklahoma casualties buried as an unknown could be positively identified, the DOD said. After reviewing the case, JPAC exhumed the casket and using dental comparisons and matching DNA with relatives determined it contained Lehmans remains.
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http://www.stripes.com/news/remains-of-sailor-killed-in-wwii-identified-1.106841
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GOD bless this man and his family.
A life cut short so young.
The information I posted in #3 above, causes me to wonder...
there were 393 unknown remains...
did they have to exhume all of them
and check each one for a match?
RIP
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Gods |
Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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