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Casualty Info
Home Town Virginia, MN
Last Address Virginia, MN
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Calvary Cemetery - Virginia, Minnesota
Military Service Number 3 287 319
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
On Dec. 7, 1941, RM3 Tini was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft. The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, which caused it to quickly capsize. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Tini.
UPDATE: In April 2015, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a policy memorandum directing the disinterment of unknowns associated with the USS Oklahoma. On June 15, 2015, DPAA personnel began exhuming the remains from the Punchbowl for analysis.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, killed during World War II have been identified as those of Navy Radioman 3rd Class Dante S. Tini. Tini,19, born in Virginia, Minnesota, was accounted for on August 13, 2018.
Comments/Citation:
Dante Sylvester Tini was born July 25, 1922 in Virginia, St. Louis County, Minnesota. His parents were Italian immigrants Daniel and Rachel Georgi Tini. They arrived in the USA in 1919. His father worked as a maintenance worker for a local park. They owned their home in Virginia and had five children; Inez, Vincent, Alda and Dante and Annette.
He enlisted in the United States Navy and served during World War II. Tini had the rank of Petty Officer Third Class. Service number assignment was 3287319. He was attached to the USS Oklahoma as a Radioman.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Tini was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft. The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, which caused it to quickly capsize, trapping the sailors inside the hull. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Tini.
Navy Petty Officer 3c Tini, 19, of Virginia, Minnesota, was accounted for in 2018. DNA analysis and circumstantial evidence were used in the identification of his remains.
Dante Sylvester Tini is memorialized at Tablets of the Missing at Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii. This is an American Battle Monuments Commission location. His remains were returned home and buried at Calvary Cemetery, Virginia, St. Louis County, Minnesota on 24 May 2019.
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This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Together We Served and on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen person’s name and read his/her story.
marykake47286 - Contributing Author, Stories Behind the Stars
If you have any details, photos, or corrections for this story, please click here to email TWS directly.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Attack on Pearl Harbor
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1941
Description The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning, was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940,[19] disappeared. Clandestine support of the United Kingdom (e.g., the Neutrality Patrol) was replaced by active alliance. Subsequent operations by the U.S. prompted Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to declare war on the U.S. on December 11, which was reciprocated by the U.S. the same day.
From the 1950s, several writers alleged that parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may have let it happen (or even encouraged it) with the aim of bringing the U.S. into war. However, this advance-knowledge conspiracy theory is rejected by mainstream historians.
There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan. However, the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.
