
On a windy day at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia Harbison looked over the casket of her late father, U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Connolly, at his burial—not a common experience for a woman in her 90s. She was only eight years old on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Nevada-class battleship USS Oklahoma, moored in the waters of Pearl Harbor, was struck by torpedoes and capsized, killing her father and 428 other sailors and Marines. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Connolly joined the Navy in 1912 in Boston and served in World War I. Promoted through the ranks, eventually reaching that of chief warrant officer, he was three weeks away from retiring when the torpedoes struck.