More than 80 years after he died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, John Connolly was finally laid to rest — not as an unknown in a mass grave, but as a naval officer in Arlington National Cemetery.
When the Navy first called to tell his daughter, Virginia Harbison, that her father’s remains had been identified, she hung up. At 91, living in assisted care in Texas, she could hardly believe it. It was her son, Bill Ingram, who called her back to share the news again. She was silent for so long that he had to ask if she was all right. “Bill,” she said, “I hadn’t thought about that for 60 years.”
She has lived the full life her father never had the chance to. In March, Ingram pushed his mother in her wheelchair to her father’s grave site for the burial.
“They fold the flag in this very tight, nice triangle, and then with white gloves, the commanding officer comes and takes it and kneels down and hands it to my mother,” said Ingram, who lives in San Francisco. “It was incredible.”
On Dec. 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 429 service members aboard the USS Oklahoma died. Horrifyingly, men trapped below deck after the ship capsized could be heard tapping out “SOS” in Morse code as the air supply dwindled. Though 32 men were rescued, the rest were tragically not reached in time.