The DPAA has announced that Private First Class John Franklin Middleswart, a Marine killed in action Pearl Harbor, was accounted for on 28 January 2021.
A native of Alton, Illinois, Middleswart was born on 10 April 1921, the youngest of three children raised by John H. and Dora Middleswart. The family moved to Peoria, Illinois in the 1930s and John graduated from Woodruff High School with the class of 1940. Trim and tall – he stood six feet two inches and weighed 164 pounds – young John was an ideal candidate for the Marine Corps and a recruiter in Chicago happily signed him up on 5 March 1941.
After boot camp in San Diego, Middleswart was sent to Sea School and then to the Marine detachment aboard the USS Oklahoma. His exact duties aboard the battleship are not known, but he must have done them well for he earned a ship’s warrant promotion to Private First Class in October 1941.
The following month, most of the Middleswart family – John Senior, Dora, and Edgar – moved to California to work in the San Diego shipyards. They had barely settled in their new home at 4148 Poplar Street when the news of Pearl Harbor broke. Soon they learned of the destruction of the Oklahoma, and the massive casualties among her crew. Nearly three weeks passed before they were notified that their son and brother was among those missing.
PFC Middleswart 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 Middleswart was deemed non-recoverable.
In 2015, exhumations of mass graves containing Oklahoma
remains began at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. To date, John Middleswart is the ninth member of the Marine detachment – and the 300th Oklahoma crewman – to be positively identified. His remains will be returned to his family for the final burial.
Welcome home, PFC Middleswart. Semper Fi.
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