USS Oklahoma: Remembering

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — Fifteen USS Oklahoma survivors plunged shovels into the dirt at Pearl Harbor on Thursday to break ground on a memorial to the 429 servicemen who died on board the battleship 65 years ago.

A black stone memorial, to be built on a grassy spot on Pearl Harbor’s Ford Island, will feature engraved sketches of the ship and the names of those killed.

It will sit a few hundred yards away from where the Oklahoma was moored Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes pummeled it with up to nine torpedoes. The ship capsized in less than 20 minutes as water filled the hull.

"I think if you will all listen deep down in your hearts, I think you will hear 429 thank-yous,” Paul Goodyear, a USS Oklahoma survivor and champion of the memorial project, told those gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony.

Survivors said they were grateful their fallen shipmates would at last be rightfully honored by a memorial of their own. Even though the Oklahoma suffered the second greatest number of casualties at Pearl Harbor after the USS Arizona, it was the only ship sunk by the Japanese that hasn’t had its own memorial.

The memorial will give family members and survivors a set place to pay their respects. Many families have lacked such a spot for decades, given the ship was later salvaged and towed away and the bodies recovered were buried in anonymous graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Officials hope to dedicate the memorial next year. About $620,000 of the $750,000 needed has been raised.

Lisa Ridge, whose grandfather was killed in the aerial assault, said she was grateful she would at last have a place to pay her respects.

"Now my family, as well as other families, can finally have a place here to remember and honor our family member’s memory as service to this great country and the price that so many must pay for the rest of us to be free,” Ridge said.

Ridge’s grandfather, Petty Officer 1st Class Paul Nash, was a fire controlman first class aboard the USS Oklahoma when he died.

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry said he was proud someone from his state took the initiative to have a memorial built and Oklahomans were raising money for its construction.

"We Oklahomans are a generous people, we take care of one another. And we are resilient in the face of adversity,” Henry said.

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The associated Press

Reps. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, and Tom Cole, R-Moore, had hoped to attend the groundbreaking for the USS Oklahoma memorial in Pearl Harbor on Thursday, but Congress was in session this week.

Cole, who inserted language in the defense bill last year authorizing the memorial, sent a letter to the survivors, expressing his "joy that we are finally able to break ground for the memorial to the fallen from the USS Oklahoma.”

He wrote, "This memorial is a long-overdue debt owed to those who have given their life in the defense of this country aboard the USS Oklahoma. My only hope is that this groundbreaking and the eventual dedication of the memorial gives some solace to those family members and survivors of that great battleship.”

Boren, who worked with Cole to establish the memorial, submitted a statement for the Congressional Record, saying the real credit for the project "goes to the Oklahoma’s remaining survivors, the people of the state of Oklahoma and the USS Memorial Committee, which is raising private funds for the memorial.”

Boren said, "With today’s groundbreaking at Pearl Harbor, we mark a significant step toward the creation of a lasting memorial to honor the 429 sailors, officers and Marines who perished on the ‘Okie,’ many of whom, until 2002, rested in unmarked graves.

"I hope that this long-overdue tribute provides some comfort to the Oklahoma’s survivors and their families, knowing that their sacrifices that day will never be forgotten.”

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, said, "The USS Oklahoma had a long and proud history, but will forever be remembered as one of our first ships lost in World War II. A memorial to the USS Oklahoma and the brave men who went down with her is long overdue.”

Chris Casteel, Washington Bureau