Pearl Harbor survivor to get final wish when his ashes are interred within the USS Arizona

Harvey Hollis Milhorn served 30 years in the Navy, including as a gunner’s mate on the USS Arizona, his first of at least seven ships, as well as a year in Vietnam, and finally as an officer and ships superintendent at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia.

But it is to the sunken Arizona where Milhorn, who was 20 when he lost his best friend in the cataclysmic explosion that caused many of the 1,177 deaths on Dec. 7, 1941, wanted to be returned to after his death.

Milhorn was in the rear “birdbath” .50-caliber machine gun emplacement high off the deck when a Japanese aerial armor-piercing bomb struck home on the front of the ship, igniting gunpowder for its big guns and literally tearing apart the bow of the battleship.

Everything forward of the mainmast was on fire, Milhorn recalled in his autobiography. A fireball burned 500 feet into the air.

“I had a terrible time trying to breathe. The exploding powder had used all the oxygen up in the air,” he wrote. “I had been blown into the handrail at the top of the tube connecting the birdbath to the ship.”

All his clothes had been blown off, leaving him in his shoes. His gun crew was dead. So was his friend, Russ Tanner.

Milhorn died in 2002 at age 80. Per his wish, his family, including daughter Frances Goldsberry and granddaughter Rachel Yarasavich, are having his ashes interred deep within the Arizona on the 80th anniversary of the attack. He will be the 45th Arizona survivor, and possibly the last, to return to the battleship.

>> RELATED: 80th Pearl Harbor Remembrance events include solemn ceremonies, live underwater dive

As the nation remembers Pearl Harbor 80 years after the audacious Japanese attack that catapulted America into World War II — including with a 7:40 a.m. ceremony Tuesday at which Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro will speak — remembrance is bittersweet for some families of the fallen from both the USS Arizona and battleship USS Oklahoma.

About 35 individuals who had relatives on the USS Arizona or connections to them, including Teri Mann-Whyatt, whose uncle, William “Billy” Mann, is a missing crew member, gathered at the Punchbowl cemetery Saturday to place flags on a series of graves marked “unknown” containing unidentified Arizona crew. Taps also was played.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said 85 Arizona crew are buried in sometimes commingled graves at Punchbowl, whose official name is the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

“We’re thinking it’s 124 now because there was one grave that had 25 guys in one grave,” said Randy Stratton, son of Arizona survivor Don Stratton.

Don Stratton, who escaped a burning USS Arizona by making a harrowing hand-over-hand climb across a rope to an adjacent ship on Dec. 7, 1941, died in 2020 at age 97.

Randy Stratton and Mann-Whyatt have organized an effort to try to have the Arizona unknowns disinterred and identified for return to families.

“We want to let them (the unidentified crew members) know that we’re going to bring them home soon,” Stratton said Saturday after the Punchbowl visit. “We just wanted to let them know that they’re not forgotten and they’ll have a flag on their gravestone through Dec. 8.”

Meanwhile, the remains of 33 USS Oklahoma crew who were exhumed as part of an unprecedented identification effort, but who could not be individually named, are being re-interred at Punchbowl during an 11 a.m. ceremony Tuesday. Del Toro will speak at the event.

In 2015, the Defense Department approved the disinterment of all 388 crew buried as unknowns. Some of the ship’s 429 total casualties were previously identified.

The National Park Service said that through the six-year Defense Department effort, 355 of 388 sailors and Marines were identified.

Twenty-five family members from multiple states are being flown in by the Navy for the re-interment. The remains will be placed in four caskets, the Navy said. Three were buried Wednesday, and the fourth will be interred Tuesday with full military honors.

Yarasavich, whose grandfather’s ashes are being interred on the Arizona, isn’t exactly sure why he filed the paperwork in the 1990s for such a burial.

“He never talked about the reason why, other than we just assumed, Russ Tanner, his best friend, was killed on the boat,” she said. “And I just really think it was something that he remembered his whole life. When he talked about it, he would tell you he could see it. He could see everything that he was telling you, like it just flashed back to his mind.”

He enlisted in the Navy in Nashville, Tenn., in 1939, and the Arizona was his first assignment. On Dec. 7, he and Tanner were topside waiting for liberty with plans to head into town to see the “A Yank in the R.A.F.” starring Tyrone Power and Betty Grable.

That’s when a Japanese plane with a rising sun emblem dropped a torpedo into the Oklahoma.

After the big explosion ripped through the Arizona, Milhorn threaded his way past mangled bodies to the fantail, where he saw the band’s instruments lying in neat rows where its members had left them to man battle stations.

Milhorn said in his autobiography that he requested permission to abandon ship, dove over the side and swam through oil to Ford Island.

His clothes gone, a resident offered him a blanket. He was treated for burns and then volunteered to go aboard the USS Tennessee.

The prohibitive cost of travel to Hawaii initially kept the family from making the trip here for the interment. The nonprofit Pacific Historic Parks picked up the cost for the family to finally come out this year.

“We’re obviously ecstatic that this is happening. It’s just going to be closure I think for both of us,” Yara­savich said for herself and her mother.

There was a bit of guilt with the delay in getting the Navy veteran back to Pearl Harbor and his final resting place.

“It’s just bittersweet (but) I know this is what he wanted,” Yarasavich said.

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The National Park Service and Navy Region Hawaii, with the support of Pacific Historic Parks, are hosting a series of events Sunday through Thursday as part of the 80th National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Commemoration to honor the 2,390 American lives lost during the attack on Pearl Harbor and the island of Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941.

Unless noted, events are not open to the public. Find more information at facebook.com/PearlHarborNPS and pearlharbor events.com, where many of the events will be livestreamed.

>> USS Nevada Memorial Ceremony: 1 p.m. Sunday. Base access required.

The USS Nevada, the oldest battleship on Battleship Row on Dec. 7, 1941, managed to get underway during the attack but was subsequently damaged and grounded herself near Hospital Point. Family and friends will gather at historic Hospital Point to honor the crew and the legacy of the USS Nevada.

>> USS Utah Sunset Memorial Ceremony: Open to the public; 5 p.m. Monday. Base access required.

The ceremony honors the loss of the USS Utah and 58 crewmen after the ship was torpedoed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The USS Utah was the first ship torpedoed in the attack; it sank 12 minutes later.

>> 80th Remembrance Ceremony: Invitation only; 7:40 a.m. Tuesday.

About 150 World War II veterans, including approximately 40 Pearl Harbor survivors, will be present at Kilo Pier for the main ceremony. Eight hundred members of the public were awarded seats in a lottery to view the livestream at Pearl Harbor National Memorial’s Visitor Center. This year’s ceremony — “Valor, Sacrifice, and Peace” — honors the sacrifices of those who died in the attack while paying tribute to the allies’ ultimate victory in WWII.

The ceremony will start at 7:50 a.m. with remarks by National Park Service Pearl Harbor National Memorial Superintendent Tom Leatherman; Rear Adm. Timothy Kott, Navy Region Hawaii; and keynote speaker, Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy. The event will also feature the Pacific Fleet Band, a wreath presentation and a flyover.

>> USS Oklahoma: Reinterment of the Unknowns: Invitation only; 11 a.m. Tuesday. Livestreamed at dvidshub.net.

The Navy, in partnership with the Defense Pow/MIA Accounting Agency and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, will host the reinterment of the 33 remaining unknown sailors of the USS Oklahoma. Through the six-year effort of Project Oklahoma, 355 of 388 sailors and Marines have been identified.

>> USS Oklahoma Memorial Ceremony: Open to the public; 2 p.m. Tuesday. Base access required.

World War II veterans, U.S. and allied service members, friends and family pay tribute to the 429 crew members of the USS Oklahoma killed Dec. 7, 1941, in the attack on Pearl Harbor during a ceremony on Ford Island. The casualties included 415 sailors and 14 Marines, who continued to fight even after the ship was struck by eight torpedoes. A ninth torpedo hit the ship as it sank and had begun to capsize.

>> USS Arizona Interment of Lt. Harvey Milhorn: Invitation only; 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Pearl Harbor National Memorial, in partnership with U.S. Navy Region Hawaii, will conduct the 45th interment of USS Arizona survivor, Lt. Harvey Milhorn a gunner’s mate on Dec. 7, 1941, who swam to safety on Ford Island and received medical care. He was eventually reassigned to the USS Tennessee and served on various ships throughout World War II. Milhorn, who retired from the U.S. Navy as a fully commissioned lieutenant, died in 2002.

>>Commissioning of destroyer USS Daniel Inouye: Invitation only; 9:45 a.m. Wednesday. Livestreamed at dvidshub.net.

The Navy will commission DDG 118, the USS Daniel Inouye, in Pearl Harbor. The ship is named for the late Medal of Honor recipient and longtime senator from Hawaii.

>> USS Utah live dive: 11 a.m. Thursday. Livestreamed at facebook.com/PearlHarborNPS and available on screens at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center.

Pearl Harbor National Memorial, in partnership with the National Park Service – Submerged Resource Center, will conduct the first-ever virtual interactive live dive of the USS Utah, the only other ship that remains where it capsized on Dec. 7, 1941. NPS divers will be supported and accompanied by U.S. Navy Region Hawaii – Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One divers. Viewers will be able to see the underwater remains of the USS Utah.