A man from southwest Iowa who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7^th, 1941, will be remembered during a Memorial Service on Sept. 25^th. Eli Olsen’s remains were identified from among 429 who were onboard the battleship U.S.S. Oklahoma when it was sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers. Olsen was a 23-year-old Navy Petty Officer 3^rd Class serving on the ship as a storekeeper. He was from Exira. John Henry Tibben, of the Ames area, is his nephew. Tibben – who is 80-years old – was just three-months old when his uncle died, so his memories are sparse.

Tibben says his grandpa and grandma didn’t have any specific idea of what happened to Eli. They had received a telegram saying he was “missing in action.” About three months later they were told Eli had been declared dead.

The remains were removed in 2015, following political pressure from Congress, USS Oklahoma survivors and their families. Olsen’s remains and those of 20 other soldiers and sailors from western Iowa and Nebraska were eventually identified through DNA analysis, at the Defense Department’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency Lab at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Eli Olsen, of Exira. KIA Dec. 7, 1941 on the USS Oklahoma. (Photo via the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)

His identity was confirmed in September, 2017. John Tibben said his mother Ruth Tibben (Eli’s sister) had a hard time dealing with the news Eli’s remains had been identified. He says when she was told Eli was coming back and would be laid to rest in Exira, “she didn’t want anything to do with it,” and that John could take care of it, because “She had dealt with that and gone through it all.”

Ruth Tibben was Eli’s last living sibling. She died in April at the age of 100. Her brother will be buried next to her and near his brother Paul, in the Exira Cemetery. The Memorial Service will be held in the Exira Lutheran Church. John Tibben says bringing his Uncle home after all these years is a “good feeling” for the family, and offers the chance for a family reunion.