KEMPTON, Ind. (WOWO) — A Kempton native who was killed aboard the USS West Virginia during the attack on Pearl Harbor will be laid to rest nearly 85 years after his death.
Fireman 1st Class Fred Boyer died on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. Boyer was born and raised in Kempton and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in Indianapolis in September 1940.
Boyer served aboard the USS West Virginia beginning in November 1940. As a Fireman 1st Class, his duties included engineering watches, ship security and maintenance, as well as assisting with the transfer of fuel and supplies while at sea.
He was among the sailors whose remains were not identified following the attack.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began work to identify sailors from the USS West Virginia in 2017, when 35 unknown remains associated with the ship were disinterred from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Scientists used forensic anthropology, dental records, personal effects, DNA and other evidence to identify the remains. The process has resulted in the identification of 13 USS West Virginia sailors as of June 2022.
Boyer’s remains have now been identified and will be returned to his hometown.
His burial with full military honors is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, at Kempton Cemetery on South County Road 1125 West.
Boyer was 23 years old when he was killed. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, American Defense Service Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal.
His family, which now lives in Fort Wayne, will be available to speak with members of the media following the burial ceremony.
The Navy says identifying the remains of sailors lost at Pearl Harbor fulfills its commitment to never abandon its fallen service members and can provide closure for families decades after their loved ones were lost.
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“His Lord said to him, Well done, you good and faithful servant…” Matthew 25:21.
Fireman 1st Class Fred Hunter Boyer was working as a “farm hand” on his father’s farm near Jefferson, Indiana when he joined the Navy on 11 September 1940. He boarded the USS West Virginia as a member of the battleship’s crew two months later on 15 November 1940. He was on board the West Virginia when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. After the attack, F1c Boyer’s body could not be identified and he was listed as “Missing in Action” (MIA).
While at the Department of Defense in January 2012, retired Police Chief Rick Stone prepared reports on all of the West Virginia’s MIA’s using the Random Incident Statistical Correlation (RISC) System which he had created as a member of the Dallas Police Department. RISC listed F1c Boyer as a “Most Likely Match” to multiple “Unknowns” buried the Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 2017, five years after Chief Stone recommended the USS West Virginia Unknowns be exhumed and identified, the Department of Defense (DoD) finally decided to act on Chief Stone’s recommendations and began disinterring all of the USS West Virginia ” Unknowns”. In 2022, F1c Boyer’s family contacted the Chief Rick Stone and Family Charitable Foundation for a comprehensive “Family Report” on his case. Foundation investigators were able to reduce the number of “Most Likely Matches” to only three Punchbowl “Unknowns” and offered the case report to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. F1c Boyer was recovered from one of the sites in the Punchbowl Cemetery indicated by Chief Stone’s original research in 2012 and confirmed by Foundation investigators in 2022. F1c Boyer’s identification by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory was officially announced by the DoD on 18 July 2024, over twelve years after Chief Stone’s initial investigative report on his case and eighty-three years after his loss.
Welcome home Sailor! We share the joy of your family in your return! God Bless you and thanks to ALL who never forgot you and your service to our country!