The DPAA reports that Corporal Elmer Edwin Drefahl, a Marine killed in action Pearl Harbor, is officially accounted for as of 29 September 2020.
Drefahl was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 5 December 1919 and spent nearly his entire childhood along 18th Street in the Park View and Arlington Heights neighborhoods. At Rufus King High School, he was active in athletics, particularly wrestling. He graduated in the summer of 1939 and enlisted in the Marine Corps the following May.
After earning high marks in boot camp (including an expert rifleman’s rating) and Sea School, Drefahl joined the Marine detachment aboard the USS Oklahoma. He spent the entirety of his seagoing service aboard the battleship, earning recognition (along with prize money and promotion) for his gunnery skills. Drefahl attained the rank of corporal within eighteen months of enlisting – a rapid rise in the peacetime Marine Corps. His exact duties aboard Oklahoma are not known, but with his additional training in machine guns, he may have been assigned to an anti-aircraft battery.
Corporal Drefahl was one of over 400 Oklahoma crewmen lost at Pearl Harbor. He was initially reported as missing in action, and his family held out hope for his return until a declaration of death in February 1942. His remains could not be identified in the aftermath of the attack, or when the ship was righted and raised in 1944. The case was closed in 1949, and Drefahl was deemed non-recoverable.
In 2015, exhumations of mass graves containing Oklahoma remains began at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. To date, Elmer Drefahl is the eighth member of the Marine detachment to be positively identified. His remains will be returned to his family for the final burial.
Welcome home, Corporal Drefahl. Semper Fi.
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