Bluffs man who died at Pearl Harbor will be buried Saturday

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

By Steve Liewer

During the depths of the Great Depression, Bert McKeeman of Council Bluffs quit high school early to help support his impoverished family.

In 1940, he pursued his dream of travel and service and joined the Navy. That dream ended in fire and flood Dec. 7, 1941. The 25-year-old died aboard the USS Oklahoma when the battleship was torpedoed by Japanese bombers and sank at its moorings in Pearl Harbor.

Of almost 1,400 men on board, 429 died — 388 of them, including McKeeman, were buried in Hawaii as “unknowns” because their bodies couldn’t be identified.

Seventy-seven years later, on Saturday, McKeeman will be buried in his native Iowa, at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in Council Bluffs.


Bert McKeeman

U.S. NAVY

Read more: https://www.omaha.com/news/iowa/bluffs-man-who-died-at-pearl-harbor-will-be-buried/article_e39fb930-8677-5328-93a6-e33d640259b2.html

[cactusfractal]

1. Fair winds and following seas, shipmate. n/t

[Harker]

2. 25 forever.

How very sad.

[Kaleva]

3. A local man who died at Pearl Harbor was buried this past summer

"ONTONAGON, MI -- A Michigan sailor has made his way back home nearly eight decades after he was killed in the attack on Peal Harbor.

Navy Fireman 2nd Class Lowell E. Valley, 19, of Ontonagon, was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941."

https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/07/michigan_sailor_killed_at_pear.html

[Apollyonus]

4. RIP brave one