Fellow died at Pearl Harbor, so what's the catagoriztion?

Question

I found a 5-6 cousin who died at Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec 1941. Should He go under disasters, or Military or both?  Or is there a separate category?  I'd go look but figured there might be other people wanting to know.

Comments

Presuming he was in the military, he would be under one or more of the related categories. I don't know the protocol for civilians who died in the (or any war-related) attack.

I didn't see any categories for disasters, but I don't know why a military attack/war would be considered a disaster (other than man-made).

Finding the proper category, of course, would be an excellent needle-in-haystack exercise!!

Answer 1

There is a Category: Pearl Harbor Attack.

Was he shipboard? There are ship categories. DId he receive medals? I would put him as KIlled In Action, too, but I'd verify that with the NARA archives.(I did this. See below.) Also, as a fireman, he worked in the engine room, so most likely shipboard.  ANOTHER update: Found a news article. He was aboard the Uss Arizona. 

Is this Melvin Horn? I see he was Fireman 3rd Class. He is listed in Combat Dead, so he was Killed In Action. His NOK is Miss Pearl Nichols. 

https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/media/images/27/26/27-2593a.gif

 

Comments

So, let's run down the categories:

Pearl Harbor Attack

USS Arizona (BB-39), United States Navy

Killed in Action, United States of America, World War II

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News article citation:

"157 Licking Men Are Reported Dead in War," ''The Newark Advocate and American Tribune'' (Newark, Ohio) 15 Aug 1945: 22. Print.

The NARA citation. information is here: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/navy-casualties/ohio.html  His name is in Combat Dead, page 19.

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SO, for anyone checking for war dead for US military in WWII, the Army has a list, and the Navy/Marines are separate. What you need to know to search it at the NARA site is the state the person called his/her home before the war. In the Army file, you need to know the county as well. If you don't, you will have to search every page.

Anyway,  you search alphabetically, and the Army lists the status, whether the person was KIA, DOW (died of wounds) or DNB (died, non battle) The Army and Navy lists were published in 1946, so all reported war dead should be listed. You can find some wounded/missing information, too.

See here: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2

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Thanks for best answer, Dave.

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Thanks for the useful information.  Did you get his name from my Contribution list?  There are a lot of Horns who connect to my relatives, though I don't have any Horn ancestors that I know of.  The line my connection goes through is David Evans, Sr. my 5ggrandfather.  I probably have 10,000 or more direct descendents of him in my offline tree, but I don't know if I'll ever get them all entered into WikiTree. He came from NJ to Amwell, Washington, Pennsylvania and finally died in Pickaway County, Ohio.

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Yes, I went to your contrib. list and found a male near the top and took a leap. I have Horns SOMEWHERE in my tree, because early in my genealogy "career," some guy with the surname Horn took all of my Durbin line ancestry photos for his tree. I had no idea I could make certain things private.