75 years later, seaman killed in Pearl Harbor to return home

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  — A Navy seaman’s remains are returning to Kansas, 75 years after he was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Lewis Lowell Wagoner was 20 when he was declared missing after the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack that propelled the United States into World War II.

Wagoner was aboard the USS Oklahoma when it and other U.S. warships were hit by torpedoes. The battleship Oklahoma capsized quickly. Thirty-two men were rescued, but 14 Marines and 415 sailors were killed and largely were buried as “unknowns” in a Hawaii cemetery.

Many of those remains were disinterred for modern DNA testing that only recently identified Wagoner and roughly 30 others.

Wagoner’s remains are to be flown Friday to Wichita, with a memorial and interment ceremonies scheduled the next day in Harvey County. TVJ