USS Oklahoma (BB-37), the only ship of the United States Navy to ever be named for the 46th state, was a World War I-era battleship and the second of two ships in her class; her sister ship was Nevada. She, along with her sister, were the first two U.S. warships to use oil fuel instead of coal.

The Oklahoma which was commissioned in 1916, served in World War I as a member of BatDiv 6, protecting Allied convoys on their way across the Atlantic. She then joined the Pacific and Scouting Fleets. Oklahoma was modernized between 1927 and 1929. In 1936, she rescued American citizens and refugees from the Spanish Civil War. On returning to the West coast in August of the same year, Oklahoma spent the rest of her service in the Pacific.

On 7 December 1941, Oklahoma was sunk by several bombs and torpedoes during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A total of 429 crew died when she capsized and "turned turtle" in battleship row.

The men found themselves in a bizarre world turned upside down, in pitch-black darkness, as compartments filled with water. Julio DeCastro, a Hawaiian civilian yard worker, organized a team that saved 32 Oklahoma sailors. Tragically, the torches most effective for cutting holes into the hull used up the oxygen in the compartment, killing the occupants. The yard crew grabbed hammers, axes and anything they could find to cut holes into battle steel to get some of the sailors out.

Men waited, waited in a cold and black compartmenst with a few companions. Some were in the lost and found department, known as the Lucky Bag. After an endless seeming wait, the sound of an air hammer brought him welcome news of rescue. Thirty two out of 429 men were saved.

In 1943 Oklahoma was righted and salvaged. However unlike most of the other battleships that were recovered following Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma was never returned to duty. She was eventually stripped of her remaining armaments and superstructure before being sold for scrap in 1946. She sank in a storm while being towed from Oahu in Hawaii to a breakers yard in San Francisco Bay in 1947.

The horrendous number of deaths on the USS Oklahoma —
429— was second only to the 1,177 men who perished aboard the USS Arizona. For almost 60 years, there was no memorial to commemorate the men or their ship. Part of the Oklahoma sat submerged near Ford Island while many of her crew lay in unidentified mass graves. At the Punchbowl cemetery, where countless young servicemen rest, no one knew exactly where the Oklahoma crew was buried. It seemed to some that the Okie had been forgotten. Beginning in 2000, USS Oklahoma survivors, members of the USS Oklahoma Memorial at Pearl Harbor Committee, and hundreds of others came together to create the memorial. In 2006, President Bush officially signed the memorial into law as a national memorial entrusted to the National Park Service. On December 7th, 2007, the memorial was formally dedicated as an enduring reminder of the Oklahoma and her crew.

Alphabetical USS Oklahoma Casualty List

• Adkins, Marvin Birch
• Alexander, Hugh R.
• Allen, Stanley W.
• Allison, Hal Jake
• Arickx, Leon
• Armstrong, Kenneth Berton
• Arthurholz, Marley Richard
• Artley, Daryle Edward
• Auld, John Cuthbert
• Austin, John Arnold
• Backman, Walter Howard
• Bailey, Gerald John
• Bailey, Robert Edward
• Banks, Layton Thomas
• Barber, Leroy Kenneth
• Barber, Malcolm John
• Barber, Randolph Harold
• Barncord, Cecil Everett
• Barrett, Wilbur Clayton
• Bates, Harold Eugene
• Battles, Ralph Curtis
• Baum, Earl Paul
• Bennett, Robert James
• Black, Waldean
• Blackburn, Harding Coolidge
• Blanchard, William Eugene
• Blaylock, Clarence Arvis
• Blitz, Leo
• Blitz, Rudolph
• Bock, John George Jr.
• Boemer, Paul Louis
• Booe, James Brazier
• Boring, James Bryce
• Boudreaux, Ralph McHenry
• Boxrucker, Lawrence Anton
• Boynton, Raymond Devere
• Bradley, Carl Merrill
• Brandt, Oris Vernelle
• Breedlove, Jack Asbury
• Brewer, Randall Walter
• Brooks, William
• Brown, Wesley James
• Bruesewitz, William G.
• Buchanan, James Rufus
• Burch, Earl George
• Burger, Oliver Kenneth
• Burk, Millard Jr.
• Butts, Rodger Cornelius
• Callahan, Archie Jr.
• Camery, Raymond Ralph
• Campbell, William Vane
• Cargile, Murry Randolph
• Carney, Harold Francis
• Carroll, Joseph William
• Cassigner, Edward Eugene
• Casola, Biacio
• Casto, Charles Ray
• Casto, Richard Eugene
• Cheshire, James Thomas
• Chess, Patrick Lloyd
• Clark, David Jr.
• Clayton, Gerald Lee
• Clement, Hubert Paul
• Clifford, Floyd Francis
• Coke George Anderson
• Collier, Walter Leon
• Collins, James Earl
• Connolly, John Gaynor
• Connolly, Keefe Richard
• Conway, Edward Leroy
• Cook, Grant Clark Jr.
• Corn, Robert Livingston
• Corzatt, Beoin Hume
• Craig, John William
• Cremean, Alva J.
• Crim, Warren Harding
• Crowder, Samuel Warwick
• Curry, William McKnight
• Cyriack, Glenn Gerald
• Darby, Marshall Eugene Jr.
• Davenport, James Watson Jr.
• Day, Francis Daniel
• Delles, Leslie Phillip
• Derrington, Ralph Alva
• Dick, Francis Edward
• Dill, Leaman Robert
• Doernenburg, Kenneth E.
• Donald, John Malcolm
• Dorr, Carl David
• Doyle, Bernard Vincent
• Drefahl, Elmer Edwin
• Drwall, Stanislaw Frank
• Dusset, Cyril Isaac
• Dyer, Buford Harvey
• Eakes, Wallace Eldred
• Eberhardt, Eugene Keller
• Edmonston, David Bell
• Ellis, Earl Maurice
• Ellison, Bruce Harry
• Ellsberry, Julius
• England, John Charles
• Farfan, Ignacio Camacho
• Farmer, Luther James
• Fecho, Lawrence Herman
• Ferguson, Charlton Hanna
• Fields, Robert Auswell
• Finnegan, William Michael
• Flaherty, Francis Charles
• Flanagan, James Monroe
• Florese, Felicismo
• Foley, Walter Charles
• Foote, George Perry
• Ford, George Calvin
• French, Joy Carol
• Furr, Tedd McKinley
• Galajdik, Michael
• Gara, Martin Anthony
• Garcia, Jesus Francisco
• Garris, Eugene
• Gaver, Henry Hamilton Jr.
• Gebser, Paul Heino
• Geller, Leonard Richard
• George, George Themistocles
• Gibson, George Harvey
• Giesa, George Edward
• Gifford, Quentin John
• Gilbert, George
• Gillette, Warren Clayton
• Gilliard, Benjamin Edward
• Glenn, Arthur
• Goggin, Daryl Henry
• Goldwater, Jack Reginald
• Gomez, Charles Clay Jr.
• Gooch, George Merton
• Goodwin, Clifford George
• Goodwin, Robert
• Gordon, Duff
• Gowey, Claude Oliver
• Graham, Wesley Ernest
• Grandpre, Arthur M.
• Griffith, Thomas Edward
• Gross, Edgar David
• Grow, Vernon Neslie

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