From September 2, 2021, 2 First Alert (Wisconsin) WBAY "Barber brothers back home in New London nearly 80 Years after Pearl Harbor Attack" by Jeff Alexander.
New London, Wisconsin.
December 7, 1941, has haunted this community ever since that day in 1941.
"Even as a kid growing up we heard the story of what happened with the Oklahoma being sunk at Pearl Harbor and the three brothers being on it at the time, and the whole town, it was twenty years before I was born, but I know it was a major event in the city," recalls Kevin Rusch, owner of Cline & Hanson Funeral Home.
Navy sailors Malcom, Leroy and Randolph Barber died that day along with 426 other members of the battleship USS Oklahoma's crew. Shortly before December 7, their father had written a letter to the U.S. Navy saying he was uncomfortable about his three sons all being on the same ship and asked that they be put on different ships.
The request, sadly, was too late, but it changed Navy policy forever. No longer are brothers allowed to serve on the same ship.
It took the Navy a long time to get the Oklahoma upright and by the time they did, and could start recovering the bodies, there wasn't much left to identify the dead. They were buried in Hawaii as "Unknowns".
--GreGen
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