ST. CHARLES, Ill. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Nearly 80 years after he was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, a sailor from St. Charles will be reburied under his own name.
Navy Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class Leslie P. Delles was among the 429 crewmen who died when the battleship USS Oklahoma was hit by a barrage of Japanese torpedoes on December 7, 1941.
Hundreds of sailors were trapped below decks when the Oklahoma rolled over and sank in the harbor. The wreck was salvaged in 1944, but the Navy was only able to identify several dozen of the hundreds of bodies that were trapped inside.
The men who were recovered, but never identified were buried in military cemeteries in Hawaii. The remains were exhumed three years later, and transported to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks so medical examiners could attempt to identify them.
Only 35 men from the USS Oklahoma were identified originally identified, and the remaining were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 2015, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the unknown remains for analysis. Delle's body was identified thanks to DNA analysis on Feb. 12.
He will now be reburied under his own name at a cemetery in California this October.
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