WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL - Seaman First Class Maurice Verdon Spangler

 

Seaman First Class 

Maurice Verdon Spangler

Pearl Harbor - the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941 - and one of Defiance's own met death there. Navy Seaman 1st Class Maurice V. Spangler, 20, went down with the U.S.S. battleship, Oklahoma, that day when Japanese aircraft hit it with multiple torpedoes, causing it to capsize quickly, resulting in the deaths of 429 crewmen.

The son of Jay Clement and Nettie Ruth (Gier) Spangler, Maurice enlisted in the Navy in September 1940. One brother, Estel or "Bud," also enlisted and they were assigned to the same ship, but at the time of the bombing, Bud had taken a position as a mechanic and he would not be on the ship. He was ashore waiting to be flown to San Diego for his new job. They also had another brother, Robert.

Navy photo of the Oklahoma sinking

From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew, which were subsequently buried in the Llalawa and Nu'uana Cemeteries in Honolulu. In the meantime, the newspapers reported Maurice just as missing.

"In September 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater, members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) disinterred the remains of the U.S. causalities from the two mentioned cemeteries and transferred them to Central Identification. The laboratory staff could only confirm the identifications of 35 men from the U.S. Oklahoma at that time." Maurice was listed as unrecoverable.

Crescent-News, May 18, 1942

Between June and December 2015, unidentified bodies from the U.S.S. Oklahoma were exhumed as they had been placed in Punchbowl Cemetery, Hawaii.  

By March 27, 2020, forensics had improved greatly, and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Navy Seaman 1st Class Maurice V. Spangler, 20, of Defiance, Ohio, was accounted for using DNA.

Maurice was finally returned to his family and on September 12, 2021, almost 80 years later, Maurice was laid to rest in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, otherwise known as Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii, with full military honors.

Even though recovered, his name is permanently inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at that cemetery with a rosette beside the name to indicate that he has been found.

Maurice was awarded the Purple Heart, a Combat Action Ribbon, an American Defense Service Medal with a Fleet Clasp, an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one star, and a World War II Victory Medal.

Robert Carpenter, Researcher

A little extra...

This article appeared in the January 23, 2023, Defiance Crescent-News online:

"DEFIANCE SAILOR TO BE BURIED AFTER MORE THAN 80 YEARS

A Defiance man will be buried January 4 at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.

According to a press release from the Navy Office of Community Outreach, Millington, Tenn., Seaman 1st Class Maurice Verdon Spangler will be honored with a burial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific- also called the 'Punchbowl.' The Punchbowl is in Pearl Harbor, the site of the early morning Japanese attack on December 7, 1941 during World War II.

Spangler's nephew, Jerry Spangler of Longmont, Colo., told the Crescent-News that his uncle was in the Navy by the time he was born. 

'I didn't get to know Maurice because he was away on duty when I was born,' he said. 'I have a letter where he says...who is this little guy, Jerry, you keep talking about? How is he?'

According to Jerry Spangler, his uncle had come to live with his family in Fort Wayne for a time before he joined the military.  'Maurice grew up in Defiance, and I think his name is on the memorial at the courthouse,' said Spangler. 'I don't know much about his time there because my parents didn't talk much about that, but I do have a lot of his letters that he wrote while in the Navy... He was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, just a fun-loving guy.'

Born and raised in Defiance, Spangler enlisted in Indianapolis, Indiana on September 4, 1940. As soon as he went through basic training, Spangler was sent to the Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

'One of the letters I have indicated that he had been assigned to the Oklahoma,' added Jerry Spangler. 'He was excited because he was there with his brother, Estel, who we called Bud. Coincidentally, Bud did not die in the attack because he was on shore at the time. Maurice was on the ship when the attack happened.'

The Oklahoma was authorized along with the Nevada in 1911, and the keel was laid for the Oklahoma in 1912. The two battleships, according to Naval information, were the first to use oil instead of coal.  On May 2, 1916, with Capt. Roger Welles at the helm, the USS Oklahoma was commissioned at Philadelphia, Pa. There that day was the then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who would later in 1941, ask Congress to declare war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor."

On December 6, it reached Pearl Harbor and was to be based there.  

Punchbowl or the National Memorial Cemetery, Honolulu, Hawaii.

The reports do cloud the burial date a bit, but the important news is that there is closure to Maurice Spangler's story.