"Unknown" from Pearl Harbor identified

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/11/2...eut/index.html

QUOTE

Body of Pearl Harbor sailor identified
Tuesday, November 25, 2003 Posted: 10:16 AM EST (1516 GMT)


HONOLULU, Hawaii (Reuters) -- One elderly sister called it a miracle and
another said she had finally found closure after the body of their brother,
a sailor killed at Pearl Harbor 62 years ago, was identified.

Thelma Blanton and her sister, Flora Mae Young, were told the news Monday in
Young's Leavenworth, Kansas, home by U.S. Navy officials.

In telephone interviews, the two sisters said they sat speechless as the
officials explained how the remains of Fireman 2nd Class Payton L.
Vanderpool Jr. had been located, disinterred and positively identified as
the brother who died on December 7, 1941.

Vanderpool is the second "unknown" Pearl Harbor casualty ever identified.

Afterward, Blanton, 76, called the news "unreal" again and again. She was in
high school when she last saw the brother everyone called "P.L."

"I just can't imagine this happening in my lifetime," said Blanton, who
lives in Kansas City, Kansas. "I am still in awe of it all. It is just a
miracle to me."

Young, 81, said that before Monday, she never truly understood what grieving
families meant when they spoke of closure. Now she knows.

"I hadn't felt that until today," she said after the Navy briefing ended.
"I'd say that is how we all feel."

Vanderpool will be buried in the family plot in Braymer, Missouri, beside
his parents. The date and time -- 1 p.m. December 7.

Military officials disinterred Vanderpool's remains in June from the
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu after an 82-year-old
survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ray Emory, convinced them he had
gathered enough documents to prove who was in grave Q-179.

That evidence, combined with dental records, a photograph of Vanderpool,
historical data and the sailor's physical description led to the
identification, Navy Capt. John Lewis Jr., a forensic odontologist at the
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command said in a telephone interview.

Vanderpool was 22 and assigned to the USS Pennsylvania, which was in drydock
during the attack. Records show he was sitting on the pier when the bombs
began to fall, said Emory, who lives in Honolulu.

Emory, who serves as the national historian for the Pearl Harbor Survivors
Association, said Vanderpool's personnel file stated that he was conscious
when an ambulance took him away.

That was the last time anyone saw the sailor from Lawson, Missouri.

Emory has made identifying "unknowns" his personal crusade. It was his
research that led to the identification in November 2001 of the first Pearl
Harbor "unknown," Apprentice Seaman Thomas Hembree.


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Joe S.