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Casualty Info
Home Town Canon City, CO
Last Address Canon City, CO
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Wall/Plot Coordinates Court 5 (cenotaph)
Military Service Number 3 718 589
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Petty Officer First Class Edward Conway was Killed in Action on December 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was stationed aboard the USS Oklahoma BB37.
Service number: 3718589
Comments/Citation:
EM1 Edward Leroy Conway
Edward Leroy Conway was born August 1, 1912 in Illinois to Bradley Conway (1892 - ?) and Delia (Cannon) Conway (1894-1918). Little is known of Edward’s early life. Edward is found living with his aunt and uncle, Gardner and Nellie (Cannon) Croy, in Oklahoma in 1920. By 1930, he was living with Frank Daw, his guardian, in Canon City, Colorado. Frank died in 1940.
Edward enlisted in the US Navy on January 8, 1938. Muster rolls indicate he enlisted in San Diego, California, while others state Fremont County, Colorado. He served on the USS Chaumont, USS Henderson and USS Mindanao before his final station on the USS Oklahoma (BB-37). His rank was Electrician’s Mate 1st class.
At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the USS Oklahoma (BB 37) was one of the U.S. Navy's oldest battleships. A Nevada class ship, the Oklahoma was one of the first large U.S. combatants built to burn fuel oil, thus saving weight and volume of displacement.
The ship was one of the most advanced weapons platforms of its time. In addition, it was five hundred tons larger than any previous class battleship, and it had a mean draft of about twenty-eight and one-half feet and the ship displaced 27,500 tons. The Oklahoma was estimated to be capable of making twenty and one-half knots when fully under way. With 598,400 gallons of oil, the ship could operate in a four-thousand-mile radius.
Assigned to the Pacific Fleet, the Oklahoma arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1940. Here on Battleship Row, the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft on the morning of December 7, 1941.
That morning, the Oklahoma received the brunt of the initial Japanese attacks. Struck by multiple torpedoes, the ship capsized. Many men were trapped inside or killed by flying debris. In all, Oklahoma lost twenty officers and 395 enlisted men. Except for the USS Arizona, the Oklahoma lost the most casualties of all ships in the harbor that day. Rescue efforts began almost immediately.
Edward was listed as missing in action on December 7, 1941 and later declared dead. He is remembered at the Courts of the Missing within the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, the USS Oklahoma Memorial on the shores of Ford Island, Oahu, Hawaii, and the Colorado Freedom Memorial in Aurora, Colorado. He was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.
Thank you for your service and sacrifice EM1c Edward Leroy Conway.
DPAA Addendum - Unknown Accounted For
Electrician's Mate 1st Class Edward Leroy Conway was aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when it came under attack by Japanese aircraft. He was killed in the attack, and while his remains were recovered from the ship following the incident, Conway could not be individually identified at the time. As such, his remains were initially interred in a local cemetery in Honolulu and then later reinterred as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 2015, advances in forensic techniques prompted the re-examination of the unidentified sailors from the Oklahoma. On 01 October 2021, the DPAA officially accounted for EM1c Conway. His remains will be buried with full military honors on 12 November 2022 in Decatur, Illinois. A rosette was placed next to Conway’s name at the American Battle Monuments Commission's Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl and at the USS Oklahoma Memorial, indicating he has been accounted for.
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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.
Kerry Stockdale - 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.
