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Casualty Info
Home Town Des Moines, IA
Last Address 1628 SE 34th St Des Moines, IA (Parents James and Elizabeth Temple)
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (VA) - Honolulu, Hawaii
S1c Monroe Temple's Remains Identified From World War II
Date
Mar 22, 2017
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2018
Comments
Remains of USS Oklahoma Sailor Identified From World War II (Temple)
Remains of Seaman 1st Class Monroe Temple, killed in the attack on the USS Oklahoma during World War II, have now been identified.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Temple was assigned to the 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 Temple. No single vessel at Pearl Harbor, with the exception of the USS Arizona, suffered as many fatalities.
From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu'uanu Cemeteries.
In September 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater, members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks. The laboratory staff was only able to confirm the identifications of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time. The AGRS subsequently buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified as non-recoverable, including Temple.
