‘I didn’t give up hope’: Pearl Harbor victim laid to rest after identification
Harry Funk/The Almanac
U.S. Navy personnel salute Stanislaw Drwall as his casket emerges from the airplane.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Mary Ann Ryther speaks about efforts to identify all of the victoms of the bombing of the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Jim Shaw of East Washington gives instructions to members of the Patriot Guard Riders gathered in Moon Township prior to their mission to honor U.S. Navy Patternmaker 1st Class Stanislaw Drwall.
U.S. Navy Patternmaker 1st Class Stanislaw Drwall (1916-41)
Harold and Mary Ann Ryther watch as her uncle's remains are transported from aircraft to hearse.
Members of the Patriot Guard Riders escort the hearse bearing the remains of Stanislaw Drwall.
Lt. Commander Brian Pietrandrea of the Navy Operational Support Center Pittsburgh joins Patriot Guard Riders, from left, Jim Shaw, Pat Dawson, and Susan and Michael Whitlach.
The casket of Stanislaw Drwall is taken from a Southwest Airlines jet.
U.S. Navy personnel prepare to carry the casket of Stanislaw Drwall.
U.S. Navy personnel carry the casket of Stanislaw Drwall toward a waiting hearse.
U.S. Navy personnel load the casket of Stanislaw Drwall into a hearse bound for West Virginia.
U.S. Navy personnel stand at attnetion next to the hearse bearing the casket of Stanislaw Drwall.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Leading the Patriot Guard Riders Honor Mission for Stanislaw Drwall are, from left, Michael and Susan Whitlatch, Pat Dawson, and Jim Shaw.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Pat Dawson of Middlebourne, W.Va., gets ready to ride her Can-Am.
On Dec. 5, 1941, U.S. Navy Patternmaker 1st Class Stanislaw Drwall sent a telegram home to West Virginia from Hawaii.
With it, he wired some money with instructions to buy his young niece a Christmas present and tell her it was from “Uncle Santa.”
Nearly 80 years later, Mary Ann Ryther finally had the opportunity to say thanks, in a sense.
She and her husband, Harold, traveled from their home in Cortland, Ohio, to Pittsburgh International Airport Wednesday. There, a U.S. flag-draped casket bearing Drwall’s remains were taken from a Southwest Airlines jet and carried by active U.S. Navy personnel to a hearse.
Then the Rythers joined others in traveling to Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Thomas, W.Va., for Drwall’s burial with full military honors. Accompanying them was a two-state contingent on a Patriot Guard Riders Honor Mission, with East Washington resident Jim Shaw serving as the mission’s ride captain for the first leg of the journey.
Drwall was aboard the USS Oklahoma during the bombing of Pear Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, and was among the ship’s 429 crewmen who lost their lives. His 105th birthday would have been Aug. 5, the day of his long-delayed funeral.
“That’s why we chose this day,” Mary Ann Ryther said.
She is the oldest living relative of Drwall, whose remains had been interred for nearly 70 years with other unidentified Oklahoma victims at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
The Rythers were instrumental in his eventual identification, contacting a cousin living in Poland to provide a DNA sample for scientific analysis. They also founded the USS Oklahoma Remains Preservation Project to advocate for learning the identities of all the ship’s victims, about 35 of whom still are not known, for the sake of their families.
“I’ve lived with this since I was 4 years old,” Mary Ann said about hearing the post-Pearl Harbor news about her uncle. “I didn’t give up hope.”
As the hearse bearing her uncle’s remains departed from the airport, it was accompanied by members of the Patriot Guard Riders from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, primarily motorcyclists who attend the funerals of members of the U.S. military and first responders at the invitation of a decedent’s family.
“I just can’t put into words what an honor it is to be invited to escort this gentleman home,” Pat Dawson, West Virginia state captain, said at the airport.
Serving as ride captains from her state for the honor mission were Wheeling residents Susan Whitlatch, assistant state captain, and her husband, Michael, a U.S. Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm. Susan’s father, Francis Poskey, was a Seabee aboard the USS Ranger during World War II.
“So to bring this gentleman home and my dad being in the Navy,” she said, “I’m awfully proud.”
Dawson and the Whitlaches were among those making the 150-mile trek to Hinkle-Fenner Funeral Home in Davis, W.Va., and to the cemetery. Along the way, the contingent stopped for fuel along Interstate 79 near Waynesburg, and a West Virginia hotel provided seven free rooms for some of the travelers to stay overnight.
Another member of the Drwall family, Stanislaw’s brother Walter, served in the Navy during World War II. He died a year when his ship went down in the North Atlantic in December 1942, on his first mission after completing boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois.