Turner, Billy
Navy Seaman 1st class

Billy Turner, age 20, from Carter County Ardmore, Oklahoma .

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, December 7, 1941
Death details: On October 1, 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Seaman First Class Billy N. Turner, missing from World War II. Seaman First Class Turner entered the U.S. Navy from Oklahoma and served on the USS Oklahoma. On December 7, 1941, the battleship USS Oklahoma was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when attacked by Japanese forces. The Oklahoma suffered multiple torpedo hits, causing it to capsize. Four hundred and twenty-nine sailors and Marines were lost, including SEA1 Turner. In the days, months, and years following the attack, remains of men lost aboard the Oklahoma were recovered. Those remains that could not be identified were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu, Hawaii (NMCP). In 2015, the DPAA received authorization to exhume unknown remains associated with the Oklahoma and reexamine them using advances in forensic technology. From June through November 2015, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) personnel, in cooperation with cemetery officials, exhumed all remaining caskets associated with the USS Oklahoma at the NMCP and transferred the remains to DPAA laboratories. Laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established one set of these remains as those of SEA1 Turner.

Source: National Archives