Another USS Oklahoma Casualty's Remains Identified

From the July 13, 2016, Vinton County Courier "7 decades later, remains of local Pearl Harbor casualty identified" by Tyler Buchanan.

The relatives of James Bryce Boring of Radcliffe, Vinton County, were notified earlier this year that his remains from the USS Oklahoma had been identified.  He was Vinton County's first casualty in World War II.

He was born August 28, 1920, the youngest of his family.  His mother died a few months later and his father passed away a few years later.  He and his siblings grew up in the Vinton County Children's Home.
A graduate of McArthur High School, he enlisted in the Navy and trained in Chicago before being assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma as a firefighter 2nd class.

A few days after the attack, his relatives received a telegram reporting him "missing in Pacific action."  He was Vinton County's first death of 51 others.

When the USS Oklahoma was uprighted, he was buried as an unknown and later exhumed and reburied in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific when it was opened in 1949.

However, it is now known that his body had been identified when it was recovered, but there was shoddy bookkeeping.

There will be a ceremony on August 6 at 1 p.m. at Bowen Cemetery.

--GreGen