By BRENT MARTIN and MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A special and solemn Memorial Day weekend as Mound City welcomes home the remains of Wilbur Francis Newton, who died during the September 7th, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that forced the United States into World War II.
The remains of Newton, a Seaman 1st Class, arrived in Kansas City on Tuesday.
His remains were identified as part of a project started in 2015 by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Investigators contacted Newton's oldest living maternal relative in 2012 to obtain DNA used to identify him.
Newton served on the USS Oklahoma, which capsized after taking three torpedoes from Japanese bombers, later receiving six more torpedoes. The Oklahoma sank 20 minutes into the surprise attack that Sunday morning.
The Pettijohn and Crawford Funeral Home in Mound City will be open today and tomorrow for area residents to come and pay their respects.
Newton will be buried Saturday in a plot his parents bought for him before their deaths in the 1940s.
The ceremony to finally inter his remains will be at 10:00am Saturday at the United Methodist Church, 312 E. 7th St, Mound City, followed by a military service at Mount Hope Cemetery, Mound City.
