Another USS Oklahoma Sailor Buried at Arlington National Cemetery: Roman W. Sadlowski

From the September 19, 2022, Charlottesville (Va) CBS 19 News "Sailor who died at Pearl Harbor buried at Arlington" AP.

The remains of a sailor from Massachusetts who died December 7, 1941, on board the battleship USS Oklahoma were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, September 19.

The internment comes 80 years and nearly 4 years after the  Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified his remains.

He was Electrician's Mate 3rd Class Roman W. Sadlowski, 21,  of Pittsfield. Massachusetts.

About fifteen members of his family from Massachusetts,  Texas and Florida attended the ceremony.

--GreGen

Sailor Killed on USS Oklahoma to be Buried with Full Military Honors: Beoin Corzatt

A native of Ohio, Beoin Corzatt enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1939 and received several promotions until reaching his final rank, Fireman 1st Class in May 1941.  

He was only 24 years old when he lost his life on December 7, 1941.  The attack on his ship, the USS Oklahoma, resulted in the deaths of 429 crew men, including him.

His remains were recovered from the ship, but after that length of time, could not be identified.  The were exhumed in 2015 and using advanced forensics were identified on December 20, 2020.  The recovery project has also identified the remains of  354 previous unidentifieds from the Oklahoma.

He will be reburied at the National Cemetery of the Pacific with full military honors.

--GreGen

What Became of the USS Oklahoma Marine Platoon?

From the November, 1942, Marine Corps Recruiter.

In the last post, I wrote about a platoon of Marines referred to as the USS Oklahoma Platoon in honor of the Marine detachment serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma when it capsized during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  This was the only additional information I could find out about it.

Caption to a picture.

"Display  Aids in Recruiting Station.

"In connection with the recruiting drive to enlist the USS Oklahoma Platoon, enlisted in honor of the men of the Marine Detachment of the battleship USS Oklahoma who were killed at Pearl Harbor, and the western premiere of  the film "Wake Island," this display was arranged in a Tulsa, Okla., store window."

This is all I have been able to find on this group.  I'd sure like to know more.

--GreGen

80th Anniversary of Swearing In of the USS Oklahoma Marine Corps Platoon

From the September 15, 2022, Oklahoman "Throwback Thursday:  Platoon  name honors fellow Marines from USS Oklahoma" by Linda Lynn.

From caption of the photograph.

"Eighty-five Oklahomans raise their right hands as they are sworn into the Marine Corps on September 15, 1842, on the south side of the state Capitol.

"The platoon was designated as the USS Oklahoma Platoon in honor of the detachment that had served on the USS Oklahoma battleship, which was hit by multiple torpedoes on December 7, 1941, during the bombing of Pearl Harbor."

And, It Was Formed in Oklahoma.   --GreGen

Herbert 'Bert' Jacobson Buried-- Part 3: A Good Story from It, Though

Brad McDonald is a nephew of Herbert Jacobson and says there is one good story to come of his uncle's death.  For him, seeing the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery was especially poignant.

"When  Bert joined the Navy,  he ran into a fella from South Dakota who was an orphan,"  McDonald said.

"When they got a weekend pass, Bert took him home and the orphan met Bert's younger sister."

Orville McDonald and Norma Jacobson dated and later married, giving McDonald a favorite ending to the story.

"That orphan was my dad, and Bert's  sister was my mon," he said.  "So, I wouldn't be here without Bert."

Both of his parents are buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Orville Charles :Mac" McDonald (1918-1995) and Norma Jacobson McDonald (1923-2007).

That was a Great Story.  --GreGen

Herbert 'Bert' Jacobson, USS Oklahoma Unknown, Laid to Rest-- Part 2

In 2015, the Department of Defense announced they were going to disinter the remains of the Oklahoma Unknowns and use new scientific methods to identify them.  The Jacobson family was ecstatic.  They said their mother cried every December 7 because of his death and especially since his body's location was unknown.

This Project Oklahoma has led to the identification of  355 men, including Herbert.  This leaves 33 sets still to be identified.  To mark the 80th anniversary of the attack, those 33 were reinterred.

As far as Herbert Jacobson's death, all they knew was what shipmates had told them.  He had just come off duty after spending several hours ferrying men to the shore.  A good friend had told them that he was pretty sure that Jacobson was asleep in his bunk and died before he even knew there was a war going on.

The family was notified that Herbert's remains had been identified in 2019 and were hoping the burial could take the following year, but then COVID-19.

--GreGen

Sailor Killed on USS Oklahoma Laid to Rest, Finally: Herbert 'Bert' Jacobson

From September 13, 2022, AP by Don Babwin.

A twenty-one year-old sailor was laid to rest Tuesday after a decades-long effort to identify his remains at Pearl Harbor.

Members of Herbert "Bert"  Jacobson's family waited all their lives to attend a memorial for a  young man they never knew or met.  Jacobson was among the 400 USS Oklahoma Unknowns.

The casket holding his remains was carried Tuesday morning on a horse-drawn caisson led  by a military escort before his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Herbert Jacobson was from the small town of Grayslake in northern Illinois.  His family knew he had died, but there was no body to bury.  The USS Oklahoma lay submerged for two years before it was uprighted and the bodies recovered.  By then there wasn't much to go on for identification.

More.  --GreGen

Facts About 9/11

I was unable to do my annual commemoration of 9/11 yesterday so am doing it today in seven of my eight blogs.

From the Do Something Organization "11 Facts About 9/11."

**  In September 11, 2001, nearly 3000 people were killed, and 400 were police officers and firefighters, in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City.  Attacks also took place at the Pentgon by Washington, D.C. and in a plane crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

**  9/11 was not the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.  A bombing in February of 1993 killed six people.

**  On any given workday,  up to 50,000 emplyees worked at the WTC twin towers and an additional 40,000 passed through the complex.

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 4: More Than 1.1 Million Murdered Here

Today's visitors can also see suitcases, glasses and other items prisoners brought on their journeys there.  Especially haunting are the prostehetic limbs.  Many of the Jews who were murdered had fought for their homelands, including Germany, in World War I.

At some parts of Auschwitz-Birkenau only dozens of brick chimneys remain on a vast field where once the barracks for detainees stood.

More than 1.1 million people were murdered by the Nazis and their henchmen at Auschwitz.  Most of those killed were Jews, but the victims also included Poles, Roma (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war, and others.

In all, about 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust.

When the Soviets liberated the camp, they found about 7,000 survivors.

--GreGen

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 3: 'Arbeit Macht Frei'

Prisoners arrived in cramped, windowless cattle cars.  At the infamous ramp at Auschwitz, the Nazis selected those they could use as forced laborers.  The others -- old people, many women and especially children and babies -- were gassed to death soon after their arrival.

It is Birkenau that shocks more profoundly, a flat, vast space still ringed by the silver birch trees -- Birken in German -- that gave the place its name.  Crematories lie in rubble but still intact are the rail tracks and watch towers and some of the barracks where prisoners slept in cold, cramped conditions.

A photo shows the notorious main gate with the cynical Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- a German phrase meaning "work will set you free."

--GreGen

Life After Auschwitz-- Part 2: There Were Actually Two Auschwitzes

Fromthe January 26, 2020, Chicago Tribune.

The 75th Anniversary of its Liberation

On Monday January 27, 2020-- 75 years after its liberation --  hundreds of survivors from across the world will travel to Auschwitz for official anniversary commemorations.

Auscwitz today is many things at once: an emblem of evil, a site of historical remembrance and a vast cemetery.  It is a place where Jews make pilgrimages to pay tribute to ancestors whose ashes and bones remain part of the earth.

Auscwitz is not one camp, but two:  Auscwitz I, built in an abandoned Polish military base, and Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, a much bigger complex that went up later about two miles away to expedite the Nazis' Final Solution.

Early on, Auschwitz I operated as a camp for for Polish prisoners, including Catholic priests and members of the nation's underground resistance against the German occupation.  Later in the war, Birkenau was created for the mass killing of Jews and others who were transported there from across Europe.

--GreGen

USS Oklahoma Sailor to be Buried at Arlington National Cemetery: Herbert Barney Jacobson

From News 8 ABC Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Savannah Sinclair.

Herbert Barney Jacobson, who died aboard the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, is set to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday, September 13.

He was born  October 9, 1920, in Illinois and served on the Oklahoma as a Fireman 3rd Class.

Navy Firemen were  part of the Engine Roon Force, Artificer Branch.  They were responsible for standing engineering watches and performing mibor maintenance repairs.

He was just 21 years old when he lost his life.

--GreGen

Danube Drought Reveals Parts of Hidden WW II History

From the August 30, 2022, AP News. by Dusan Stojanovic.

The worst drought in Europe in decades has caused German ships sunk in the Danube River near Prahovo, Serbia, to become exposed.  Some of the ships still contain ammunition and war munitions.  At one time, these ships were part of Germany's Black Sea Fleet.

They were deliberatelysunk by the Germans as they retreated from Romania as Soviet forces advanced in September 1944.  The idea for sinking was to slow the Soviet advance.  It didn't work.

Many of the German ships were removed after the war, but others left in place if not directly in the river shipping channel.

One source said that as many as 200 were sunk back then.  It is thought another 40 are still underwater, but 21 are now above it and causing problems with river traffic.

--GreGen