--- title: "A previously ‘unknown’ sailor killed at Pearl Harbor is returned home 75 years later" date: "2018-04-02" modified: "2020-10-22" authors: - name: "Blake Stilwell" job_title: "Editor-In-Chief, Air Force Veteran" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/blake/" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/a-previously-unknown-sailor-killed-at-pearl-harbor-is-returned-home-75-years-later/" categories: - "History" - "Navy" - "War History" --- # A previously ‘unknown’ sailor killed at Pearl Harbor is returned home 75 years later ![]() Seaman 2nd Class Lewis Wagoner was the first of the Wagoner boys to join the Navy. He loved school, and cared deeply for others. --- ![]() *Lewis Wagoner after joining the Navy. (AARP)* ### Read Now: [See the intense Navy deck logs from the Pearl Harbor attack ]() Lewis was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He died on the USS Oklahom*a* with 427 of his shipmates. "It made life hard," said his brother, Carl Wagoner. "To think about it." Seaman Wagoner's remains could not be identified and were placed in mass graves with 393 other sailors. Generations of the Wagoner family have made the trip to Hawaii to see the memorial to those unidentified sailors and the names included on it. "I was glad to see there was something," said Lee Longaker, Lewis Wagoner's niece. "But it was still empty as far as who's really there." After decades, the POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the sailors from the Oklahoma and used new techniques to identify their remains. Luckily, Carl Wagoner was still alive to see his brother's remains repatriated to their home in Haysville, Kansas in October 2016. ![]() *An Honor Guard at Lewis Wagoner's funeral, 75 years after his death. (AARP)* AARP studios brings the story of Lewis Wagoner's remains and his family's efforts to bring him home in the video below. "To have him come home actually, to be close to all of us, means a whole lot to them and to me," says Mark Wagoner, Lewis Wagoner's nephew. "Now I can show my children and tell my children what and who he was." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72fv69rPYpo ## Author Blake Stilwell is We Are The Mighty's Editor-in-Chief, covering military news, entertainment, and history, along with veteran education, employment and entrepreneurship. He is a former U.S. Air Force combat cameraman with degrees in Graphic Design, Television and Film, International Relations, Public Relations, Business Management and Middle Eastern Affairs. After leaving the military, he began working in film and television production in New York and Los Angeles, work that included ABC News, NBC Olympics, and HBO Sports. He then spent two years in Washington with White House Communications, before joining the Near East Foundation. At NEF he served as an International Development Fellow, then Communications Officer, and finally, Media Officer for the Middle East and Africa. Based in the Palestinian Territory, he coordinated strategic communications between eight country offices, international media, and government and NGO partners. He began a career focused on writing and editing in 2015 with We Are The Mighty. He left in 2019 for Military.com, but returned as Editor-in-Chief in 2025. Blake’s work has been seen on CBS News, Fox News, CBC, The Chicago Tribune, Task & Purpose, Military Times, Recoil, Skillset, American History, and was shockingly even used in a Supreme Court argument. He is an avid traveler and small business owner in Ohio, where he spends most of his energy fixing up a very old house. ### Author social links [Facebook]() [Twitter]() [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]()