SF2c Roy Wallace POWERS 1941 Pearl Harbor

POWERS, MCQUEEN

Posted By: Andrew BROWN (email)
Date: 10/19/2010 at 11:11:46

SF2c Roy Wallace POWELL

Oelwein IA – Reburial services for Roy W. POWERS, 23, whose body will be returned Wednesday to Oelwein will be Wednesday at 2:30 P.M. from the Brant Funeral Home with burial at Woodlawn Cemetery;

He was killed at Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7 1941, while on active duty;

Survived by his parents, Mr. & Mrs. John Powers, Oelwein, three sisters, Mrs. Roy Benson of St. Louis Mo; Mrs. P. C. Brinkman of Oelwein, and Mrs. Roger Gillespi of Oelwein; two brothers, Norman and Jack of Oelwein; a daughter, Sharon and a son, Roy, both of Pennsylvania. (Waterloo IA Daily Courier 19JUL1949)

(Notes):
s/o John Lester POWERS & Vesta Viola McQueen.

Killed at Pearl Harbor while on Active Duty with the U. S. Navy aboard the battleship USS West Virginia. He was a ship fitter.

In October 1941, Roy and wife visited Oelwein, IA from Long Beach, CA where his wife was probably living. He was serving aboard the battleship USS West Virginia berthed at Honolulu which on December 7, 1941 was one of the ships hit at Pearl Harbor by Japanese aircraft.

..At Pearl Harbor on that Sunday Morning, the West Virginia was hit by at least two armor piercing bombs and five or six torpedoes. The ship's fire control officer, Lt. Claude V. RICKETTS, managed to keep the ship from capsizing as had the USS Oklahoma by counter-flooding and the battleship then settled even keel to the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

While undergoing salvage the bodies of almost 70 sailors were found who had been trapped in compartments below deck as it sank .. the last date scratched on one compartment wall was Dec. 23.

Ship Captain, Mervyn S. BENNION, died of shrapnel wounds to the abdomen.

Roy was one 106 crew members who died on the USS West Virginia.

He had married Wanda Jesse ?.

In January 1944, Roy was awarded a Purple Heart posthumously. He had served four years in the navy prior to death.