UPDATE 5/18 11:00 AM – Motorists in St. Mary’s County are advised that there will be a large funeral procession for a World War II casualty taking place from Mattingly-Gardiner Funeral Home in Leonardtown to St. Joseph’s Church in Morganza, starting at noon today–Wednesday, May 18.
Motorists should use caution in the area and expect delays.
USS Oklahoma. U.S. Navy photo.
UPDATE: 3:30 p.m. Jan. 14, 2016
According to research provided to TheBayNet by Michael Sullivan of Charles County using the ancestry.com website, Albert Eugene Hayden was born in March of 1896 to Emma (Trice) and James Hayden, Sr. He had two brothers, Roland and Ralph, and one sister, Gladys.
The records showed that the family lived in Valley Lee in 1900 and somewhere in the 5th District of St. Mary’s County in 1910. He was shown living in Baltimore in 1920. The records show that he never married.
Albert Hayden’s father James, Sr. died in Mechanicsville on July 8, 1917, His mother Emma died in 1955
Mechanicsville, MD — The family of a local man is receiving some closure after 75 years. Chief Petty Officer Albert Hayden, a career Navy man, was 44 years old on December 7, 1941 and serving on the USS Oklahoma when it was attacked by Japanese bombers in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Some on the ship escaped that day but hundreds were trapped below the decks of the USS Oklahoma. Most of the bodies were recovered but their identification was rendered impossible based on technology available then and they were buried in unmarked graves in two cemeteries in Hawaii.
A recent effort has been made to identify the bodies, and graves were exhumed last year. Sixty-one caskets were retrieved from 45 graves and the arduous process of using dental records to identify the bodies has begun.
On Monday Jan. 11 the names of five of the bodies, including Hayden, were released after they had been identified and the families notified. The Bay Net has been unsuccessful so far in identifying the family to find out more information about Chief Petty Officer Albert Hayden. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has refused to release the names based on the wishes of the families.
The DoD office says that Hayden’s remains will be returned to the family for burial in Maryland sometime in March at which time the funeral arrangements will be announced.
Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@thebaynet.com
