Remains of sailor killed at Pearl Harbor on way to Illinois
A veterans official says the remains of a sailor killed during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are being sent to Illinois for burial.
That comes after tests have identified remains of Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter Howard Backman, who was a 22-year-old serving aboard the USS Oklahoma when it hit by torpedoes during the attack. He was among 429 crewmen killed.
Veterans Assistance Commission of Kane County superintendent Jacob Zimmerman tells The Beacon-News that Backman’s remains will be buried during the spring near a memorial stone already in place for him at River Hills Memorial Park in Batavia, Ill. Backman was born in 1919 in Wilton, N.D., to a farming family who moved to the Chicago-area city of Aurora shortly after his 1938 enlistment in the Navy. AP