For Immediate Release:
Thursday, December 7, 2006

Boren statement on U.S.S. Oklahoma
memorial groundbreaking

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Congressman Dan Boren submitted the following statement for the Congressional Record commemorating today’s groundbreaking for the U.S.S. Oklahoma Memorial:

 

Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the groundbreaking of a memorial to the U.S.S. Oklahoma, which sank 65 years ago today in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

           

Commissioned in 1916, the 583-foot U.S.S. Oklahoma escorted President Woodrow Wilson to and from France at the conclusion of World War I.  She served in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets through the 1920s and 1930s, and when the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, she steamed to Bilbao to ferry American citizens to safety in Gibraltar and French ports.  The Oklahoma was assigned to Pearl Harbor exactly one year and a day before the Japanese attack.

 

The casualties aboard the U.S.S Oklahoma represent the second-largest loss of life aboard any Pearl Harbor ship.  Yet no memorial exists to commemorate her and her crew.  With today’s groundbreaking at Pearl Harbor, we mark a significant step toward the creation of a lasting memorial to honor the 429 sailors, officers and Marines who perished on the “Okie,” many of whom, until 2002, rested in unmarked mass graves. 

 

I am proud to have worked with Congressman Cole and the other members of the Armed Services Committee to pass language in the 2005 Defense Authorization Act providing a site for the memorial.  But the real credit for making this project a reality goes to the Oklahoma’s remaining survivors, the people of the state of Oklahoma and the U.S.S. Oklahoma Memorial Committee, which is raising private funds for the memorial.

 

I hope that this long-overdue tribute provides some comfort to the Oklahoma’s survivors and their families, knowing that their sacrifices that day will never be forgotten.

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