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Patrick Lloyd Chess |
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Yakima, Washington |
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December 7, 1941 |
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SF-3 (Shipfitter 3rd Class) Patrick Lloyd Chess, US Navy was 24 years old when was killed on December 7th, 1941, while serving aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) which was moored at Pearl Harbor, on Battleship Row off of Ford Island, on the island of Oahu. He was listed as KIA/MIA and recently identified through DNA. |
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Purple Heart |
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For funeral service slidedshow, click photo below: June 11, 2022 |
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| From The Yakima Herald-Republicm
yakimaherald.com 06/11/22 "It's a miracle." Yakima man killed in Pearl Harbor attack buried Saturday at Tahoma Cemetery DONALD W. MEYERS Yakima Herald-Republic Jun 11, 2022 Eighty-one years after he joined the U.S. Navy, Patrick Lloyd Chess is back home in Yakima. Chess, who was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was laid to rest Saturday in the veterans section of Tahoma Cemetery. About 100 people attended the service, in which Chess was buried with full military honors by the U.S. Navy. For Chess’ family members, the service was the fulfillment of a hope spanning generations. “It’s a miracle,” said his niece, Crystal Chess. “It is amazing that he is now home.” Chess’ return was made possible through DNA samples provided by family members seven years ago to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which works to identify the remains of U.S. service members. Chess was born Nov. 28, 1917, in Yakima, the youngest of eight children of James and Josephine Chess. He worked on farms, said his great-niece, Darrilyn Cranney, and joined the Navy on Oct. 11, 1940. On Dec. 13, 1940, he was assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, one of the Navy’s battleships, as a shipfitter. The Oklahoma was moored off Ford Island at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when it was hit by nine torpedoes from Japanese bombers. The ship capsized, trapping hundreds of sailors and marines in its hull. While some of the trapped sailors made it out, some through holes cut in the overturned hull by rescuers, 429 — including Chess — died on the ship, with their remains eventually recovered after the Oklahoma was righted. By 1947, only 35 of the remains were identified, and Chess and the rest of his shipmates were declared “nonrecoverable” by the Navy and buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Chess, a third-class petty officer, was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. But Chess’ family never gave up hope that one day he would be brought back to Yakima. “His mother always wanted him to come home,” Crystal Chess said. Cranney said family members visited Hawaii several times, seeing his name on a plaque near the USS Arizona memorial, inscribed in the Courts of the Missing at the national cemetery in Honolulu and at the USS Oklahoma Memorial on Ford Island, where 429 white pillars are arranged to represent the dead shipmates as if they were “manning the rails.” In 2015, the POW/MIA Accounting Agency reopened the case of the Oklahoma’s crew. Armed with DNA technology, the government had the Oklahoma crew exhumed and brought to the laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for testing. Several Chess family members supplied DNA samples that could compared with the remains. In 2020, the Chess family received the news they were waiting for: Chess had been identified. While they learned that Chess was found, his nephews who spearheaded the effort to bring him back to Yakima, David Chess and Willis Raltz, died as funeral plans were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Crystal Chess and other family members took over Chess’ homecoming, which began Monday when his remains were flown to Seattle and brought back to Yakima in a procession escorted by the Patriot Guard Riders and various police agencies. More than 70 people attended a viewing for Chess at Shaw & Sons in Yakima Friday, where memorabilia, including the telegram telling the family that Chess had been lost, were displayed alongside his flag-draped casket. Saturday, the funeral procession, with the Patriot Guard Riders providing motorcycle escort, entered the cemetery’s east entrance, under an American flag strung between two Yakima Fire Department ladder trucks, and past his parents’ graves to the veterans section of the cemetery. There, a Navy honor guard in dress white uniforms placed Chess’ casket atop his grave and folded the flag. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Theodore LeClair, deputy director for operations for the Indo-Pacific Command, presented the flag to Crystal Chess. U.S. Army soldiers fired a 21-gun salute and a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.” Chess’ family members were grateful for the support and his return to Yakima. “Something that wasn’t right has been made right,” said Lance Chess, a second-great-nephew of Chess. |
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| From KIMA TV kimatv.com 06/10/22 Family of Yakima 'war hero', who died in Pearl Harbor attack, remember his sacrifice by Khirstia SheffieldFriday, June 10th 2022 It took 81 years for Patrick Lloyd Chess to be identified after he died at the age of 24 in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Today he's being remembered in his home as family, friends and veterans come to honor his sacrifice. "You're home, you're beside your mom, you're laid to rest in your hometown," said Crystal Chess, relative of Patrick Lloyd Chess. Patrick L. Chess was born in Yakima to farmers and at the young age of 22 he was enlisted to the navy. He died just shy of one year into his service on the U-S-S Oklahoma battleship. According to family members, he was a dream chaser who dedicated his life to serving his country. "He was just a hero before his time," said Chess. "He gave the ultimate sacrifice for all of us." The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, left more than two thousand Americans dead. According to the Smithsonian, new DNA technology has helped researched identify over 90 percent of those remains, decades later. Today that same DNA technology reunited a family whose been searching for answers for decades. 'We talk about closure, but we can finally experience it now," said Thomas Hodgins, great nephew of Patrick Lloyd Chess. A woman who served in the Navy for 21 years, Karen Schultz, said she may not have known Chess personally, but the Navy family runs deep. She says this is history in the making. "So many were unidentified and having them have the capability now of being able to identify these sailors and bring them home makes it even more emotional," said Schultz. Patrick Lloyd Chess will be laid to rest tomorrow at 10 AM the Tahoma Cemetery. Today his family members tell me this moment is special because he'll be buried next to his parents. |
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