News-Info-Alerts

Re: Family Waited 62 Years

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: November 28, 2003

"Family to bury man killed at Pearl Harbor

Navy fireman was identified Sept. 22 with dental records

The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- More than six decades after Navy Fireman 2nd Class Payton L. Vanderpool Jr. was killed at Pearl Harbor, his remains will finally return home for burial in the family plot in northwest Missouri.

Word that Vanderpool's remains had been found and identified had been awaited by his two sisters in Kansas City, Kan., almost from the time of the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian base on Dec. 7, 1941.

"I'm so thankful I've lived long enough to see it," Thelma Blanton, 76, said this week. "It is absolutely a miracle to me."

"It's overwhelming," said her sister, Flora Mae Young.

Vanderpool grew up northeast of Kansas City and served aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania, which was in dry dock at Pearl Harbor on the day Japanese warplanes strafed the dock area. Vanderpool and more than 2,000 others died in the attack.

His remains were buried in National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, but the family didn't know the precise site of the grave. The sisters went to Hawaii and visited the cemetery. Blanton recalls a trip about 20 years ago during which she saw his name on a memorial commemorating the attack.

In the years afterward, Blanton wrote letters to see whether someone could help answer questions about his final resting place. Help came from historians who still work at sorting through the mysteries of Pearl Harbor.

Remains were disinterred from the cemetery in June of this year, and Vanderpool was finally identified Sept. 22 with the help of dental records, said Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, public affairs officer for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

Vanderpool represents the second case of an unidentified victim of Pearl Harbor being found and identified, O'Hara said. How many other unidentified victims remain isn't known, he said.

The sisters knew the identification process was under way, and Navy officers brought them the final details of their brother's case this week.

Now, Young said, her brother's remains will be buried in the family plot in Braymer, Mo. The memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Dec. 7, almost 62 years to the hour after his death.

"I've always heard of people talking about closure," Young said. "Now I know what it means."

©2003 The Topeka Capital-Journal"