World War II Navy sailor from Auburn accounted for

AUBURN, Ill. (WAND) - A Navy sailor from Auburn who was killed in World War II has finally been accounted for.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Thursday that Navy Electrician’s Mate 1^st Class Edward L. Conway, 29, was accounted for on Oct. 1, 2021.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Conway was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, which caused it to quickly capsize. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Conway.

From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the crew, which were interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries.

In September 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks. The laboratory staff was only able to confirm the identifications of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time. The AGRS later buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.

In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified as non-recoverable, including Conway.

Between June and November 2015, DPAA personnel exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from the Punchbowl for analysis.

To identify Conway’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis. Mitochondrial DNA analysis was also used.

Conway’s name is recorded on the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Conway will be buried on Nov. 12 in Decatur.