8 decades after dying in Pearl Harbor attack, Georgia-born sailor gets Arlington farewell
Virginia Connolly accepts a folded flag during ceremony honoring her father John Connolly at Arlington National Cemetery in March 2025. (Photo by Tracey Attlee/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
More than 80 years after he died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, John Connolly was finally laid to rest — not as an unknown in a mass grave, but as a naval officer in Arlington National Cemetery.
When the Navy first called to tell his daughter, Virginia Harbison, that her father's remains had been identified, she hung up. At 91, living in assisted care in Texas, she could hardly believe it.
It was her son, Bill Ingram, who called her back to share the news again.
She was silent for so long that he had to ask if she was all right.
'Bill,' she said, 'I hadn't thought about that for 60 years.'
She has lived the full life her father never had the chance to. In March, Ingram pushed his mother in her wheelchair to her father's gravesite for the burial.
'They fold the flag in this very tight, nice triangle, and then with white gloves, the commanding officer comes and takes it and kneels down and hands it to my mother,' said Ingram, who lives in San Francisco. 'It was incredible.'
On Dec. 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 429 service members aboard the USS Oklahoma died.
Horrifyingly, men trapped below deck after the ship capsized could be heard tapping out 'SOS' in Morse code as the air supply dwindled. Though 32 men were rescued, the rest were tragically not reached in time.
After the war ended, the remains were recovered and buried in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, too water damaged and commingled to be identified individually. There they remained for years until modern science caught up with historical tragedy.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) disinterred the USS Oklahoma remains in 2015 to send to a DNA laboratory. Carrie LeGarde, a forensic archaeologist with the agency and project lead for the Oklahoma Project, said her team started the process by testing small pieces of bone for maternal line DNA. Overall, they inventoried 13,000 bones and took 4,900 DNA samples.
For Connolly, identification was complicated.
'We had several sequences that had multiple individuals, and that was actually the case with John Connolly, and part of why his identification occurred later in the project,' she said.
Since John Connolly was older than most of the men aboard the USS Oklahoma as one of the few officers on the ship and scheduled to retire just three weeks after the bombing, the team at DPAA relied on dental evidence in addition to DNA testing to confirm his identity.
Connolly was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1893 and joined the Navy in 1912. He served during World War I and was eventually promoted to a chief warrant officer.
In 1941, his wife, Mary Connolly, and their two daughters, 8-year-old Virginia and 6-year-old Helen were eagerly awaiting his return and retirement in Long Beach, California, when the Navy informed them he had died.
Mary Connolly never remarried.
'She was very sad all her life because she married at age 30 or 31 and her husband was away in the service but was killed right before he was supposed to retire,' Ingram said.
Connolly's memory has been passed down through the generations.
'We've taken my family to Hawaii, and we went to the memorial and found the marker for his name,' Ingram said.
Everything changed last year when Ingram got a call from the Navy.
In a 200-page report, the Navy detailed the historical background, identification process and scientific evidence.
'With the research that was involved, both with historical research and medical research, there's a lot of folks at DPAA that are involved,' Navy POW/MIA branch head Richard Jenkins said. 'We as a service will explain that to the family, with the hopes of them feeling comfortable with the findings and showing them that it's not just any set of remains, it's actually going to be that person.'
There's a story that runs in Ingram's family about his grandfather: A couple of years after World War II, a young man knocked on the family home and introduced himself to Virginia and Mary Connolly. He had been on the USS Oklahoma with John Connolly, he said, and when the ship was hit, Connolly pushed open a hatch and forced him out. Connolly had saved his life.
In 1944, the Navy re-commissioned one of their ships as the USS John Connolly. Though his story was a tragic one — an officer who never returned home whose remains were left unknown — history has granted him a second chance at closure. Over eight decades later, he got the hero's burial he deserved.
'They did everything. They had a band. They played Taps. They fired the guns,' Ingram said. 'Seven soldiers fired three times for a 21-gun salute.'
A final sendoff at last.
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Inside a historic church painted with murals that reflect searing social commentary
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Inside a historic church painted with murals that reflect searing social commentary
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More formal conservation efforts began in 1991, when the artist's admirers formed the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka. By 2009, the society was ready to launch professional work in earnest — preserving one mural at a time. Doering recalls when she first set foot in the church as a consultant. 'My jaw just dropped,' she said. 'I had never seen anything like this. And I wanted to be part of it.' Locals and foundations alike donated. The society also worked with the parish to repair the roof and upgrade climate control systems. In 2022, the society was awarded a $471,670 grant through the Save America's Treasures program, administered by the National Park Service, enabling recent work on the upper part of the church. A process of art and science The conservation workers began by brushing and vacuuming off loose dirt and soot. They did further cleaning with sponges and cotton swabs by the thousands. 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It finally came down in late May, in time for the parish's 125th anniversary Mass on June 1. Most of the murals have now undergone conservation. More work lies ahead, but it made an opportunity to savor the latest results. 'When you're up there, you really get caught up in every little spot,' Ruiz said. 'Then I look at the big picture. It's so much better than how it was four months ago. It looks so solid. All the colors just pop.' ___ AP photographer Gene Puskar and AP videographer Jessie Wardarski contributed. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . 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Sean Penn Criticizes Plan to Remove Harvey Milk's Name From Navy Ship
The U.S. Navy is reportedly preparing to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a Navy support ship christened in honor of the assassinated gay rights icon, an order that comes directly from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Now Sean Penn and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who both won Oscars for the 2008 biopic Milk, are hitting back at the plan. 'This is yet another move to distract and to fuel the culture wars that create division,' Black told The Hollywood Reporter. 'It's meant to get us to react in ways that are self-centered so that we are further distanced from our brothers and sisters in equally important civil rights fights in this country. It's divide and conquer.' He continued, 'These guys are idiots. Pete Hegseth does not seem like a smart man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man. He seems small and petty. I would love to introduce him to some LGBTQ folks who are warriors who have had to be warriors our entire life just to live our lives openly as who we are.' Penn responded more tersely: 'I've never before seen a Secretary of Defense so aggressively demote himself to the rank of Chief PETTY Officer.' The Defense Department's announcement coincided with the beginning of Pride month, which is not a coincidence. The Defense Department source who spoke with said the decision to rename the ship during Pride month was an intentional choice. According to a memo obtained by CBS News, the choice to rename the ship was part of an effort to reestablish 'the warrior culture' within the military — a particular fixation of Hegseth. Milk was not only one of the most prominent figures in the gay rights movement in the '70s and '80s, he was also a Korean War veteran. He was ousted from the Navy in 1955 after being accused of engaging in then-banned homosexual activities. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 — the first gay man elected to the position — after years working as an activist and leader of the Castro neighborhood's growing gay and lesbian community. As city supervisor, Milk worked closely with former Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, then also a city supervisor. Milk was assassinated along with former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone in 1978 by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. Milk begins with Milk's arrival in San Francisco and follows his political ascendancy, leading up to his assassination. The film was written by Black and directed by Gus Van Sant, and eventually earned eight Oscar nominations. Penn won Best Actor for his portrayal of the leader and activist while Black won Best Original Screenplay. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called the movie 'a total triumph, brimming with humor, heart, sexual heat, political provocation and a crying need to stir things up, just like Harvey did. If there's a better movie around this year, with more bristling purpose, I sure as hell haven't seen it.' He added, 'That Harvey's questing spirit not only lives but soars in this movie is a gift from Sean Penn, who plays him for real instead of for show.' Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Black suggested taking inspiration from Milk himself. 'Harvey Milk is an icon, a civil rights icon, and for good reason,' Black said. 'That's not going to change. Renaming a ship isn't going to change that. If people are pissed off, good, be pissed off — but take the appropriate action. Do what Harvey Milk had said we need to do, and it's about bringing back together the coalition of the 'us'-es that helps move the pendulum of progress forward. Stop the infighting and lock arms again. That's what Harvey would say.' More from Rolling Stone Late-Night Hosts Take Aim at Trump's Feud With Musk: 'Blew Up Faster Than a SpaceX Rocket' Yes, the Trump Admin Is Still Very Much Attacking Abortion Rights GOP Bill Would Legalize DOGE and Let Trump Dismantle Everything Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
