Navy Sailor Killed In Pearl Harbor Identified As St. Charles Man

The remains of a Navy sailor who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor nearly 80 years ago have been identified as a St. Charles native, a 21-year-old at the time that he died.

Navy Electrician's Mate 3rd Class Leslie P. Delles was aboard the USS Oklahoma when the battleship was hit with Japanese torpedoes, killing 429 of the ship's crewmen during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that jumpstarted United States' involvement in World War II.

Remains of the crew and some of the other 2,403 people killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor were buried in the Halawa and Nu'uanu cemeteries in Hawaii, none of them identified.


Three years later, officials from the American Graves Registration Service exhumed the remains of the fallen personnel and transported them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks, where medical examiners attempted to identify the servicemen.