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Casualty Info
Home Town Newark, NJ
Last Address 75 Somerset St Newark, NJ
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Torpedoed
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Military Service Number 2 238 062
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Archie Callahan of 75 Somerset St., Newark, NJ, was born in 1922, attended Monmouth Street School and Boys Vocational on Sussex Avenue and graduated from Central High School.
He enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 19 on August 21, 1940. Callahan became the first African American Newark resident to die by enemy action aboard the USS Oklahoma during the Japanese bombardment on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. A telegram in mid-December reported the youth missing, followed by a second one on February 12 officially reporting his death. Archie Callahan Jr. paid the ultimate price, the sacrifice of his life for his country.
In 1942 a monument was purchased by the City of Newark and unveiled in Douglas Harrison Park in honor of this local American hero. The Archie Callahan monument was moved to Military Park in 2005 and rededicated by the American Legion Guy-Callahan Post 152 Newark, NJ on December 4, 2005.
On December 7, 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Office accounted for S2c Callahan's remains.
Comments/Citation:
Mess Attendant 2nd Class Archie Callahan, Jr. (Service number: 2238062)
Navy Mess Attendant 2nd Class Archie Callahan, Jr. was born in Newark, NJ in 1922. His parents were Archie Callahan, Sr (born in North Carolina) and Pearl Callahan (born in Newark, NJ.) He had a younger sister, Jaqueline. (3)
Archie enlisted on 21 August 1940. The Navy Muster Roll of 31 Dec 1940 shows him as Mess Attendant 3rd Class on the USS Oklahoma. The USS Oklahoma had been based in Pearl Harbor since 1937. When Archie enlisted in August 1940, the USS Oklahoma was based in Pearl Harbor and Archie reported for duty on 24 November 1940. (5)
In February 1941, Archie returned home with the USS Oklahoma to Puget Sound to have anti-aircraft guns and armor added to her superstructure. After repairs, on 22 August 1941, as she was en route, a storm damaged the ship. They were forced to sail to San Francisco for repairs. On 03 October 1941, Archie returned to Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Oklahoma. He had been promoted to Mess Attendant 2nd Class.
The USS Oklahoma was in Pearl Harbor from October 1941 until the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941. Archie was one of the 429 soldiers and officers of the USS Oklahoma that were killed in action that day.
Two months after his son's death, Archie Callahan, Sr. registered for the draft. He was 41 years old and it's likely that he, like so many American men after Pearl Harbor, wanted to serve his country in memory of those lost that day. (9)
Many of the soldiers that lost their lives that day were missing. The 31 Dec 1941 Muster Roll for USS Oklahoma shows names on line after line as missing. (8) Archie's remains were later identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Office. (1)
Archie is memorialized at the USS Oklahoma Memorial in Pearl Harbor (10) and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu. Archie was 19 years old when he was killed. He served his country and should be remembered.
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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.
mgclark6143 - Contributing Author, Stories Behind the Stars
If you have any details, photos, or corrections for this story, please click here to email TWS directly.
SBTSProject/New Jersey/Essex
********** DPAA Addendum – Unknown Accounted For
Mess Attendant Archie Callahan, Jr. 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, Callahan 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 USS Oklahoma. In January 2017, the DPAA officially accounted for MAtt2c Callahan. On 06 April 2023, the DPAA announced that Callahan's remains would be buried with full military honors on 05 May 2023 in Arlington National Cemetery. A rosette will be placed next to MAtt2c Callahan’s name on the American Battle Monuments Commission's Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl in Hawaii and at the USS Oklahoma Memorial indicating he has been accounted for.
