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Casualty Info
Home Town Anamoose, ND
Last Address USS Helena (CL-50) Pearl Harbor
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Died of Wounds
Reason Torpedoed
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Fort Snelling National Cemetery (VA) - Minneapolis, Minnesota
Wall/Plot Coordinates B-1, 338N
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
S1c was aboard the USS Helena (CL-50) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was injured during the attack and tranferred to the Naval hospital in Pearl Harbor. He died of his wounds on December 13, 1941.
Comments/Citation:
Service number: 3287298
Oswald Carl Wohl – KIA Aboard USS Helena (CL-50) 7 Dec 1941
Oswald Whol Was a WWII Hero that Helped Preserve Our Freedom.
Oswald Whol was born in Anamoose, McHenry County, North Dakota on the 4th of July, 1922. From the 1930 U.S. Census we learn that Oswald’s father was Heinrich “Henry”, 41, worked as a butcher in a meat market. His mother, Minnie, 36, had three children living at home at this time; Harold, 13, Alice, 11, and Oswald, 8.
Ten years later, according to the 1940 census, siblings Harold and Alice were not listed in this document. A fourth child, Fay, was born in 1932. Oswald’s father now owned his own butcher shop.
Whol enlisted in the Navy on August 13, 1940 according to the US Navy Muster Rolls. After basic training, Oswald became a crew member of the ill-fated light cruiser USS Helena CL-50 on October 12, 1940 . He attained the rate of Seaman, Second Class with an enlisted Service Number of 328 72 98.
The USS Helena (CL-50) was a Brooklyn-class light cruiser built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s, the ninth and final member of the class. The Brooklyns were the first modern light cruisers built by the US Navy under the limitations of the London Naval Treaty, and they were intended to counter the Japanese Mogami class; as such, they carried a battery of fifteen 6-inch (150 mm) guns, the same gun armament carried by the Mogamis. Helena and her sister St. Louis were built to a slightly modified design with a unit system of machinery and an improved anti-aircraft battery. Completed in late 1939, Helena spent the first two years of her career in peacetime training that accelerated as tensions between the United States and Japan increased through 1941.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the light cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) was in the berth that the USS Pennsylvania usually occupied. Because of this, she became a target of the Japanese. As the battleships of the Pacific Fleet were the focus of the attack, the Japanese pilots were gunning for Pennsylvania but were unaware that the battleship was in dry dock across the harbor. Within moments of the call to General Quarters, Helena was struck on her starboard side by a torpedo. She began to flood but her crew managed to get it under control. This allowed for a generator to power her gun mounts. The men aboard the Helena fought back. 34 of her men were killed in the attack. Despite the damage she sustained, Helena returned to service in June of 1942.
Tragically, Oswald Whol was one of the 34. He was wounded on December 7, 1941, but later died of these wounds on December 13th. He was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Later his remains were moved to the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 30, 1947. The headstone plot is SECTION B-1, SITE 338N with a MEMORIAL ID of 3517573. VFW Post 683 in Anamoose was named after him.
Oswald Whol was awarded a Purple Heart posthumously.
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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 here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.
