Finally at rest 75 years later

Seventy-five years after Navy Seaman Second Class Rudolph “Rudy” Piskuran died at Pearl Harbor, his family was able to bring him home. Hundreds of people who had never met him, including members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Boy Scouts born long after he died, came to pay their respects. Piskuran was buried last October next to his parents in Elyria, Ohio.

“It was a remarkable feeling to see the outpouring of respect and honor,” said his niece, Star Piskuran.

Advances in DNA science are at the heart of Rudy Piskuran’s remarkable journey back to his hometown. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 killed around 2,400 Americans and launched our nation into World War II. Over the past several months, the Defense Department has accelerated efforts to identify the remains of 388 of the 429 men who died on the USS Oklahoma.

The task was complicated due to the fact that the bones of those who died on board the ship were comingled in 61 caskets that were buried after the ship was raised from the sea in 1943.

To help identify the remains, the Defense Department’s POW/MIA accounting agency hired a genealogist to find relatives who might be candidates for the DNA comparisons.

At the present time, 31 of the 388 Navy seamen have been identified and several of those have been returned to their family members. The agency estimates that it will be able to identify around 80 percent of the other seamen.

Thirty-five of the men who died on the Oklahoma were identified in 1947. The rest were buried in Hawaii at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific that is called the Punchbowl. One casket was not entered in 2003 after records were found that allowed the remains to be traced.

Operations Specialist Second Class Ryan Carroll, the son of Star Piskuran, was serving on the USS O’Kane, which was based in Pearl Harbor. The Navy allowed him to accompany his great uncle’s remains home.

One person who could not attend the funeral was Rudy’s brother. After a long illness, he passed away in May after the family learned that Rudy would finally be coming home.

The information for this column was written by Susannah Nesmith and was published in the AARP Bulletin in December 2016.

HHJ News