The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page 78

Page 20a Friday, December 7, 2001 The Sun Mission at Pearl Harbor ore nkno Bead nan arem Pearl, from Page 1a jjj JVM il 1 i rtmm, "Hi MI. i irf 4,1, t.n 1 win i iLWWi'ir iMimimnnwn outskirts of Honolulu. "These guys are traveling all over the world on these missions," Emory said. "Why aren't they looking In their own back yard? Hell, It's not even their back yard, It's their front yard." Quest for information A brusque-talking former mechanical engineer from Peoria, 111., Emory retired to Hawaii 16 years ago. He never set out to Identify the unknown occupants of the graves just to add a little Information to their gravestones.

In 1991, just before the 50th anniversary, Emory made an official visit to the Punchbowl as historian for the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. "We wanted to buy some roses and small flags and put them on the graves. So I went to the office and asked where the Pearl Harbor casualties were buried, and they couldn't tell me." Some were buried beneath gravestones that Included their name, branch of service, and date of death, but more were not. And most of the unknown graves didn't even include the date of death. "I thought, they at least ought to say where they got killed." After that, Emory returned to the Punchbowl repeatedly, wandering the cemetery with clipboard in hand.

He noted the locations of all the Dec. 7 unknowns, and the sites of countless other graves that, with no recorded dates of death, might have been. Then, he consulted casualty reports, burial records, battle accounts and other military documents. Nearly all the Pearl Harbor victims had been buried at least once before being moved to the Punchbowl when it opened in 1949, and records from earlier cemeteries proved crucial. Originally, many graves had been marked even when identities weren't known with the ships the deceased had served on.

When the Navy remains were transferred to the Punchbowl, under the auspices of the Army, that Information was left behind. It took years, but eventually Emory compiled what he says Is a nearly complete list of who he suspects is buried where. He has shared the information with the Hawaii lab, the Army, the Navy and anyone else willing to listen. Based on his findings, authenticated in part by the Navy, early ASSOCIATED PRESS PILES Death Of the Arizona: Smoke pours from the battleship as it sinks during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.

1 More than 900 of the 1,1 77 crew members who were killed were never recovered, and of the 229 bodies recovered, 124 were never identified. 1 I Harbor victims In 252 graves at the Punchbowl, most of which are marked simply "Unknown." He hates the term. It makes him cranky. Whoever they were, he says, they were known by fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. And both their remains and their families, he says, deserve better.

That Is why he took It upon himself 11 years ago to learn what he could about the unidentified. Not until last week did his quest produce results: For the first time, an unknown Pearl Harbor victim, one of two exhumed from the Punchbowl earlier this year, was identified by the Army's Central Identification Laboratory. The announcement came just shy of Pearl Harbor's anniversary. Sixty years ago today, the surprise Japanese bombing that thrust the United States Into World War II left', about 2,400 people dead. It was; until Sept.

11, the most devastating attack ever on U.S. soil. And in Its aftermath, more than half of the bodies were never found. Of those that were, about one in four went unidentified not surprising considering the level of destruction and the forensic tools available at the time. Instead, they were anonymously buried some in mass graves, some shuffled between cemeteries as many as four times before ending up as "unknowns" in the Punchbowl.

In 146 cases, Emory says, gravestones don't even carry the date of their demise. Measured against the vow today to find, Identify and return to family the remains of every victim of the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, the government's recovery effort at Pearl Harbor would seem a dismal failure. It pales as well in comparison to the military's effort to return bodies of soldiers killed in the Vietnam War 712 have been recovered and identified since 1973. And while the Army's Central Identification Laboratory has recovered and identified 267 World War II casualties In the past 23 years, not until this year did it even try to determine, through DNA testing, the identity of any of the Pearl Harbor casualties. That statistic seems more curious considering the location of the agency that calls Itself the world's largest forensic pathology lab: Since 1976, it has been based in the mthoriied month.

Limited hine only. Limited time only. Certain Purchase of 2 or 0 1 -UK 00 Pius PiUS Pins $50 Offer good as long as you in One-year agreement, 8260 or Dm Nokia 3360. Terms and Condition: The toward payment any replaced. All ability to access pel month and higher With more RICHARD AM BO: HONOLULU ADVERTISER Determined man: Ray Emory persists with his campaign although high-ranking officers have told him to stop bothering the Army.

All Pit 0I18S this year the lab's forensic experts disinterred the caskets of two unidentified Pearl Harbor victims. Grave C-258 was dug up first thought to possibly contain the remains of Thomas Hembree, a 17-year-old, blue-eyed seaman from Kennewlck, who served on the USS Curtiss. Grave Q-1163 was next suspected of holding the remains of USS Arizona crew member William A. Goodwin, 20, one of two orphaned brothers from Denver. The mysteries would take nearly a year to solve.

Would the remains be identified and returned to families after 60 years? Or would they go back Into the purchase and activation ol any ATiT Wireless Phone. p1 vou. Prices eftectiw through 12801 Wo'ro nitli you 1 same simple graves, with the same simple notation? 7, 1941 7, 1941 Homesick young sailor Thomas Hembree had been In the Navy just over four months and at Pearl Harbor for only seven days when the bombs hit. His mother received a letter from him weeks later, saying he was homesick but enjoying the beauty of Hawaii. Not realizing it had been mailed before Dec.

7, she assumed he had survived. In April, five months later, another letter arrived, this one from the Navy, saying her son had been killed. Twenty-one sailors on the USS Curtiss, a seaplane tender, had died when a bomb pierced the deck of the ship. Eighteen were identified; three were burned beyond recognition. Seven years after that, the family got a letter from the Navy asking whether they wanted Hembree's body buried at the Punchbowl or returned to his hometown.

They chose the Punchbowl. But almost 30 years later, when Hembree's sister, Helen Braidwood, a beautician from Ta-coma, visited the Punchbowl to find his grave, she was told he had been buried at sea a military euphemism meaning the body was never recovered. About 10 years after that, she returned and asked again. A worker at the cemetery contacted Emory, who had begun compiling his data. Emory met with Braidwood and shared what he knew: Only two USS Curtiss victims were unaccounted for, and based on military records and other documents, he was convinced he knew which "unknown" grave held Hembree.

He began prodding the Hawaii lab to investigate and continued to push even after Braidwood died In 1999. A niece, Beth LaRosa of Seattle, inherited Braidwood's information and questions. LaRosa was born eight years after Hembree died. She knew him only through family conversations and a picture on her father's dresser. But, through letters that her aunt passed on, she got to know him better.

She learned "Tommy" was sending home $5 a month to pay for an engagement ring for his girlfriend. More than a year ago, CILHA finally agreed to exhume the remains thought to be Hembree's if a DNA sample from a maternal relative, required to make a conclusive match, could be obtained. Helen Braidwood had no children of her own. The only other sister in the family, June, was also dead, but LaRosa managed to locate one of her daughters, who agreed to provide a blood sample. On Jan.

31, as the remains thought to be Hembree's were exhumed from the Punchbowl, Ray Emory watched. He was 10 years into his crusade by then and none of it had been easy. High-ranking officers had told him to stop bothering the Army. And once, he says, a colonel told him to go to hell. But if the remains in grave C-258 turned out to be those of Thomas Hembree, it was all going to be worth it.

Orphaned brothers in Nay Last year, on the 59th anniver- I 1 I jt ifvtA recovered from the vessel, which; still rests where it sank and today) is a national memorial. Of the 229 bodies recovered, 124 were never; identified. As a result, Campbell never' knew whether his brother mained in a watery grave beneath the memorial or in one of the Punchbowl's unknown graves. Campbell, who spent 22 years InJ the Navy and retired from the com-. puter engineering department at! the University of Arizona, began going to reunions of USS Arizona survivors in the 1980s.

Carrying his brother's photo, he would look for i surviving shipmates (there were'' only 337) who might recall him. Fori years, no one did. In 1991, though, at the 50th Pearl Harbor reunion in Hawaii, he held up the snapshot and asked if any-j one had known his brother. John' Harris, a retired army civilian; worker from Texas, stepped for-j ward. They had boarded the ship; at the same time, he said, and! served in the ship's 4th Division.

This was key information. Fur-i ther research by Emory and Lorraine Marks-Hais- lip, historian for USS Arizona Sur- vivors Association showed that' only two men from the 4th Division i had died, one of whom had been; found and identified. The other, whose body was1 found by divers removing powder i bags in August 1942, had been bur-! led as an unknown. Based on Emory's records, alii signs pointed to Goodwin being In! grave Q-1163. Last week, as Campbell and his wife, Ruth, left Tucson for the 60th! reunion in Hawaii, they carried; with them hope that they might' get some news there.

The tragedies of Sept. 11 have; kept Campbell from asking offi- cials whether his brother was in! the 60-year-old grave, opened Jan.j 30, the same day as the grave thought to contain Hembree. I "I hate to bother them. They're! probably very busy right now. Myj wife wants to call them up and ask, but I say leave it alone." Both caskets were taken to a1 nondescript beige and brown' building on a remote portiofi of" Hawaii's See Pearl, 21a Save S50-SI5 instantly 5(L99 Up.

Offer excludes prepaid sary of Pearl Harbor, Joseph Campbell, seeking "closure," opened up his finger. With a government-supplied kit, he pricked his finger at his home in Tucson, dripped his blood on a blotter and mailed the sample back to the military. His hope: that DNA tests would establish that grave Q-1163 held his younger brother, William A. Goodwin. The brothers were 2 and 4 when their mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis and their father placed them in St.

Vincent's Orphan Asylum in Denver. Two years later, their mother died. Their father, said Campbell, visited them only once, with an uncle. They gave the boys a nickel and a dime. "I remember telling my brother, 'I'll give you the big one and I'll take the small I screwed him good," Campbell laughed.

William Goodwin ran away from the orphanage when he was 16; Campbell who was a Goodwin at the time but later took the name of his maternal grandmother stayed until he was 20, going straight into the Navy in 1938. After finishing boot camp, Campbell visited his brother in Colorado. Goodwin, impressed by the uniform, decided he would join, too. Although they talked about trying to get on the same ship, Campbell ended up on a minesweeper based in Cape May, N.J., Goodwin assigned to the Arizona. Built during World War I and with a crew of more than 1,500 men, the Arizona had been stationed in Hawaii about four months and was scheduled to leave Pearl Harbor on Dec.

13, 1941. For Christmas, Campbell had sent his brother a radio. "I don't know if he got it or not." On his own radio, he heard of the attack. He held out hope until he got a letter from his maternal grandmother, saying the Navy had informed her that Goodwin was missing and presumed dead. Campbell went to the engine room to be alone.

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