Pearl Harbor Sailor Identified

For only the second time the remains of an unknown servicemember killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified. And it was all because of a missing tooth.

Fireman Second Class Payton Vanderpool Jr. of Cowgill, Mo., had been drinking his coffee on a pier where his ship, the USS Pennsylvania, was dry-docked on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. The Pennsylvania was hit by a Japanese bomb that penetrated the main deck and detonated below; the ship was damaged further by the explosion of a nearby destroyer, the USS Downes. Vanderpool was last seen being taken away by ambulance while he still was conscious.

Years later, Pearl Harbor survivor and historian Ray Emory compared files of Pearl Harbor casualties with dozens of personnel files he had collected. A photograph of a smiling Vanderpool showed he was missing an upper right tooth; the remains of an unidentified serviceman were missing the same tooth.
The remains were disinterred from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and sent to the Joint pow/mia Accounting Command at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, for identification. Skeletal analysis and dental records proved them to be Vanderpool’s. Vanderpool’s remains then were returned to his surviving sisters for burial, which took place in Missouri Dec. 7, 2003—62 years to the day after he was killed.

“He is no longer in a grave unknown,” his sister Thelma Blanton told about 170 people attending the service. “He has come home.”

New Agreement on MIA Ops

U.S. and North Korean negotiators agreed in February to improve cooperation in recovering the remains of U.S. soldiers missing in action from the Korean War.

Both sides agreed to resume repatriating remains recovered during joint recovery operations in North Korea across the DMZ at Panmunjom. This practice has not occurred since 1999. Five recovery operations are scheduled in the areas of Unsan County, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, and near the Chosin Reservoir in the northeast.