Eighty years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fallen US Naval Aviator Stanley Willis Allen ’39 was finally laid to rest in Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Augusta.
Allen was killed during the attack on the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, along with hundreds of other servicemen, during the bombing that drew the US into World War II.
While many remains were recovered at the time, they were impossible to identify until relatively recent advances in forensic technology.
In 2015, Scientists at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency launched an effort to conduct DNA testing to identify the remains.
The Navy notified Allen’s family this spring, setting in motion the long-delayed funeral, held July 18, 2023, with full military honors.
Before attending Bowdoin, Allen spent a year as a cadet at the US Military Academy in West Point, NY.
He enlisted in the US Naval Reserve in Boston in October 1940. Allen is survived by his closest living relative, his first cousin Beverly Prosser Gelwick of Harpswell.
