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Robert Keniston (Bob), OS2
to remember
Wyman, Eldon Paul, ENS.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Portland, OR
Last Address Portlland, OR
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Wilhelm's Memorial Mausoleum - Portland, Oregon
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Eldon Wyman was born on January 11, 1917, in Portland, Oregon, and attended the University of Oregon from 1936 to 1940. On August 22, 1940, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve as an Apprentice Seaman. Following training on the USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) he was appointed as Midshipman on March 17, 1941, and after attending Midshipman's School at Northwestern University he was commissioned an Ensign on June 12, 1941. On July 19, 1941, he reported aboard USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and was assigned duty as junior watch officer of the ship's fire control division.
Six decades after he died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wyman was interred with full military honors at Wilhelm's Portland Memorial Sunset Chapel. Nearly 50 people attended the service and more than 100, including Pearl Harbor survivors, Patriot Guard and family from Puget Sound. Wyman had been buried in an unknown's grave at Punchbowl National Cemetery in Hawaii until he was identified in August 2008 through his sister's DNA. He was the son of Lilly P and Paul H Wyman.
Comments/Citation:
Ensign (ENS) Eldon Paul Wyman, United States Navy Reserve. Service Number: O-102130
Early Life
Eldon Paul Wyman was born on 11 January 1917 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon. His father Paul H. Wyman, born 12 March 1883 in Washington County, Oregon, died 15 April 1944 in Portland, Oregon, was a Public School Principal. His mother Lilly P. (surname unknown) was born about 1890 in Illinois and died on 3 June 1955 in Multnomah, County, Oregon. Eldon’s parents were married in about 1913. Eldon was the younger of two children in the family; he had an older sister. He was a graduate of Grant High School and attended the University of Oregon from 1936-1940.
Military
Eldon Paul Wyman enlisted in the U.S. Navy on 22 August 1940 in Oregon. He accepted an appointment as midshipman in the Naval Reserve on 17 March 1941. Attending the Naval Reserve Midshipman's School at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, Wyman was commissioned as an Ensign on 12 June 1941. Afterwards, he was assigned to the Battleship USS Oklahoma (BB-37) which was stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii when the Japanese attack occurred. He reported aboard USS Oklahoma (BB-37) on 19 July 1941.
On the morning of 7 December 1941, a fleet of Japanese carriers launched an air strike against the U.S. Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The attack decimated the ships and personnel of the fleet and thrust the United States into World War II. At the onset of the 7 December 1941 attack, the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB-37), being moored at berth Fox 5 on “Battleship Row.” Just before 8 am, the Oklahoma was among the first of the ships struck in the attack. A torpedo struck on her port side and she capsized quickly. After the Arizona, she was the largest loss of life, at 429 sailors and marines. The Oklahoma was salvaged in 1942, but it was determined she could not be repaired. In May of 1947, she was sold for scrap and while under tow to California, she sank in a storm. Her exact location remains unknown to this day.
Death and Burial
Eldon Paul Wyman was Declared Dead while Missing in Action or Lost at Sea on 7 December 1941 aboard the USS Oklahoma during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal. He was memorialized at the Honolulu Memorial, Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, located inside Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is also memorialized at the USS Oklahoma Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After his remains were identified, he was buried at the Wilhelm's Portland Memorial Mausoleum in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon.
On August 12, 2008, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Ensign Eldon P. Wyman, missing from World War II.
Ensign Wyman, who joined the U.S. Navy from Oregon, served on the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and was aboard the ship during the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. He was killed in the incident, and while his remains were recovered from the ship following the attack, they could not be individually identified at the time. ENS Wyman was then buried as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. In 2003, advances in forensic techniques prompted the reexamination and eventual identification of ENS Wyman’s remains.
Ensign Wyman is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
USS Wyman (DE-38) was an Evarts-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy during World War II. The ship was named in honor of Eldon Paul Wyman. She was originally laid down as BDE-38 on 7 September 1942 at Bremerton, Washington, by the Puget Sound Navy Yard for the Royal Navy; launched on 3 June 1943; and sponsored by Mrs. Joe L. April. However, the ship's transfer to the United Kingdom was canceled. The destroyer escort was designated DE-38 on 16 June; named Wyman on the 23rd; and was commissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 1 September 1943.
She was promptly sent off into the Pacific Ocean to protect convoys and other ships from Japanese submarines and fighter aircraft. She performed dangerous work, including participating in the sinking of two Japanese submarines, and sailed home proudly with six battle stars.
This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and 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's name and read his/her story.
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.
