Lost in the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Missouri sailor finally returns home

A long-missing Weaubleau sailor who died aboard the USS Oklahoma battleship during the attack on Pearl Harbor is finally returning home to Missouri on Saturday.

Charles W. Thompson was only 19 years old when nine Japanese torpedoes slammed into his ship, docked along Battleship Row on Dec. 7, 1941. The 583-foot ship rolled onto its side and sank almost upside down.

Desperate rescuers cut holes in the ship's hull to pull out a few lucky survivors.

Thompson, a Navy fireman first class, was not one of them.

In fact, of the 429 men who died aboard the USS Oklahoma, Thompson, a 1939 graduate of Weaubleau High School, was never positively identified among the bodies that were recovered.

His unidentified remains and dozens more from the USS Oklahoma were eventually buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, better known as Punchbowl Cemetery, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. 

It took decades for DNA technology to advance far enough to make possible the identifications of the long-buried remains.

"About three years ago I got a phone call from the Navy to make sure we were Charles Thompson's relatives," recalled Corine Bubier-Johnson, 79, of Weaubleau, who was only 3 years old when her uncle Charles died inside the USS Oklahoma.

There was a lot of information needed, DNA samples to obtain from Bubier-Johnson and her brothers, family histories to provide.

"We wanted to do anything we could to find him," she said. "It was sort of stressful because for years we had been told all those remains were unidentifiable."

In March of this year, Bubier-Johnson got the call she had been hoping for. Thanks to her DNA sample, and those of her brothers, Thompson had been positively identified.

And, the Navy was ready to send him back home to Missouri.

On Friday, Thompson's remains will be escorted by dozens of members of the Patriot Guard motorcycle group from the Kansas City airport to Hathaway Peterman Funeral Home in Wheatland, where Thompson's memorial service will be conducted at 9 a.m. Saturday.

From there, Thompson will be buried with full military honors at the small Fairview Butcher Cemetery just outside of Weaubleau. He'll be interred alongside his mother, Rosa Anna Thompson, who died when Thompson was a young child.

"As far as I know, this is the first (DNA-identified) Pear Harbor veteran coming home to Missouri," said Bryan  Cook, who'll lead the flag-flying Patriot Guard processions on Friday and Saturday. "It's for honor and respect. This one coming home after almost 80 years is pretty special."

Thompson was raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle, after his father left to find work in California. His father stayed in touch, however, and signed a form that allowed his son to join the Navy despite being only 18 years old.

Thompson initially planned to get a teaching degree at the State Teachers College in Springfield, now known as Missouri State University, but Bubier-Johnson said he was drawn to military service by patriotic fervor, as the war effort expanded.

"I need to be there for my country," she said Thompson told a college friend.

Although she was only 3 when Thompson died, Bubier-Johnson said she still remembers her uncle, who lived next door, playing with her. In later years she learned about the attack on Pearl Harbor and realized what a terrible event that must have been for her uncle.

"I can only imagine how they were trying to find people and identify those who were missing, with all the ships that were there," she said.

She later found letters Thompson had written to his aunt and uncle — Charles and Lillie Selvidge — describing life aboard the battleship. Thompson wrote that the USS Oklahoma would make repeated stops at Pearl Harbor, then head back out to sea after a few days.

"Just a line to let you know I'm OK," Thompson wrote in September 1941. "I bought a $50 U.S. Defense bond this morning, and have more coming. They keep us at sea most of the time, but I don't mind because it's cooler than when we're at anchor.

"I'm feeling swell and saving lots of dollars, $20, and sending $20 home. Some day I hope to be a dude farmer. Just do it for the fun and the exercise. Oceans of love, Charles."

After the attack, when Thompson went missing, Bubier-Johnson said her mother (Thompson's sister) found it difficult to talk about the loss.

"There were letters and packages she had sent him that were returned to her," Bubier-Johnson recalled. "She tucked them away in an old trunk."

Saturday's funeral will bring a welcome closure to Bubier-Johnson, her brothers and others who knew Thompson.

"My biggest regret is that my mother (his sister) isn't alive to see him," Bubier-Johnson said. "We're happy to have him home where he belongs, and that we actually know where he is."

A complicated journey home 

Thompson's long journey back to Weaubleau began when Navy personnel recovered remains of the USS Oklahoma crew from 1941 to 1944.

In September 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater, members of the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of U.S. servicemen and women from two cemeteries on Oahu and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks on the island.

The laboratory staff was only able to confirm the identities of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time.

The American Graves Registration Service subsequently buried the unknown remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified, including Thompson, as non-recoverable.

Decades later, however, DNA testing allowed the Navy to make a match with relatives and positively identify the long-missing sailor from Weaubleau.