JOSEPH UCLINE CONNOR (photo courtesy of www.USSUTAH1941.org)
More than 85 years after he was killed at Pearl Harbor, a Cameron Parish Navy seaman is coming home, and his funeral service will be in Lake Charles Saturday. Louisiana Veterans Affairs Secretary Charlton Meginley says using anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis, the Defense Accounting Agency and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System positively identified the remains of Joseph Ucline Conner.
‘You’ve got the scientists, the investigators and anthropologists putting pieces together to do whatever they can to identify; the most important thing that the DAA needs is the DNA of family members,” Meginley said.
Conner was born on June 30th, 1915, in Lake Charles and enlisted in the armed forces when he was 24 years old – a relatively late age, as Meginley pointed out. Meginley says Conner rose to the rank of Fireman 1st Class when he was aboard the USS Utah on that fateful day in 1941.
“On December 7th, the same day at Pearl Harbor as the Arizona was going down, the Utah was going down. It capsized and took 58 crewmembers down with her, including Joseph Conner,” Meginley explained.
After his death, Conner was decorated with the Purple Heart, the World War II Victory Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the American Defense Service Medal and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal. Meginley says his name and the names of the others who were unidentified were listed on what’s commonly known as “The Punchbowl.”
“His name was recorded on what we call the Court of the Missing, at the National Memorial Cemetery. Now that he has been accounted for, they’re going to put a rosette there. It’s a little marker that says, ‘we finally found him,'” Meginley noted.
Meginley also points out that Conner’s brother, William, was also lost during World War II – he was aboard the USS Houston. William Conner’s remains are missing to this day.
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