Public urged to line procession route for return of WWII sailor

Old photos show Eugene Skaggs with his wife and on duty before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

 
By Doug Spoon, Editor

A military procession on Friday will carry the remains of a U.S. Navy sailor, who was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 80 years ago, from Ontario Airport to Miller-Jones Mortuary in Menifee, where they will remain until a ceremony and burial next week at Riverside National Cemetery.

Signalman First Class Eugene Mitchell Skaggs of Ansted, West Virginia died at the age of 33 when the USS Oklahoma and four other battleships anchored in Pearl Harbor were attacked on Dec. 7, 1941 -- the event that propelled the United States into World War II. The remains of many unidentified sailors were buried in a mass grave at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Those remains were exhumed in 2015 as part of an effort by the U.S. POW/MIA Accounting Agency to identify the individuals. Skaggs was later identified using DNA from living relatives, according to the organization Honoring Our Fallen, which supports the transfer of dignified remains of service personnel.

Skaggs was deployed out of Long Beach, where he was living with his wife, Mary Johanna Jameson Skaggs, and their infant daughter, Marie Elizabeth Skaggs. Marie, now 80, lives in a Riverside County city near the Riverside National Cemetery, said Laura Herzog, founder and executive director of Honoring Our Fallen.

“Ninety nine percent of the time when the family does not have a church they are affiliated with, they pick a funeral home within reasonable driving vicinity of the cemetery,” Herzog said.

According to Herzog, Skaggs’ mother and stepfather are buried in Riverside National Cemetery. The family’s wishes are for Skaggs to be buried alongside them. That will take place on Aug. 18; there will be no ceremony at Miller-Jones Mortuary.

The public is invited to pay tribute to this fallen sailor by lining the procession route, Herzog said. The procession will proceed south on the 215 Freeway to Ethanac Road, then west to Murrieta Road and south to the mortuary, located at 26670 Murrieta Road. The procession is expected to leave Ontario Airport at about 3:45 p.m.

The group Patriot Guard Riders, which includes some local residents, will escort the procession to Menifee, according to Heidi Nevarrete, a representative of the group. She asks residents to line freeway bridges and/or local roads and carry flags to welcome Signalman First Class to Menifee.