Eighty years later, Holt County sailor returns home

Louis Tushla left Holt County to protect his country.

Eighty years later, Tushla returned home to a hero's welcome.

Clearwater-area residents lined Highway 275, late Thursday afternoon, as Tushla's remains were carried from Offutt Air Force Base to Atkinson, where Tushla grew up. Some waved American flags, others stood with hands over heart, as a line of more than 70 American Legion Riders curved around the Elkhorn River bridge, northwest bound. Within the queue of vehicles, Seger Funeral Home transported Tushla's flag-draped casket home. Tushla's relatives followed the caravan, car flags waving in the hot July wind.

The Navy fireman first class died Dec. 7, 1941, when torpedoes struck the USS Oklahoma, in a surprise attack, causing it to capsize at Pearl Harbor.

Tushla, who was working in the engine room of the battleship, died with 429 fellow sailors, on "a date which will live in infamy." Bodies of most of the sailors were not recovered until 1943, when the ship was refloated. Even then, approximately 400 were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific near Punchbowl Crater, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Remains from 61 caskets in the cemetery were disinterred in 2015. Lab workers at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's lab, at Offutt, began using DNA testing to identify remains.

In March 2020, Tushla was identified via a Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat DNA match with Dennis Tushla, a nephew. Official confirmation was announced March 27, 2020.

Tushla was buried July 17, in St. Joseph's Cemetery, next to his parents, Peter and Susanna Tushla.

A marker for his brother, 1st Lt. Harold Tushla, sits nearby. Harold, part of the 93rd Bombardment Group, worked as a B-24D navigator. He went missing Feb. 16, 1943, during a bombing run near Naples, Italy. The plane and bodies of the 10 crew members were never found.