Kosciusko native killed aboard the USS Oklahoma during Pearl Harbor attack laid to rest

Kosciusko native killed aboard the USS Oklahoma  during attack on Pearl Harbor laid to rest
Kosciusko native killed aboard the USS Oklahoma during attack on Pearl Harbor laid to rest(Charlton H. Ferguson)
Published: Jul. 13, 2021 at 11:34 PM CDT
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JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Navy Musician 2nd Class Charlton H. Ferguson, 19, of Kosciusko, Mississippi who was killed during World War II, has been laid to rest.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Ferguson was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, which caused it to quickly capsize. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Ferguson.

From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the crew, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries.

In September of 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater, members of the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks.

The lab staff was only able to confirm the identifications of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time and the AGRS buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.

In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified as non-recoverable, including Ferguson.

But between June and November 2015, DPAA personnel exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from the Punchbowl for analysis. To identify Ferguson’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis.

Ferguson’s name is now recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are missing from WWII.

A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

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