A Minnesota sailor lost at Pearl Harbor finally comes home

Nearly 80 years after he was killed at Pearl Harbor, and after years of work by his family and the Navy to have his remains identified and returned to his family in Akeley, Minn., sailor Neal Todd came home.

In a somber ceremony Thursday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Todd's flag-draped casket was carried from a commercial plane to a waiting hearse as dozens of family members — including his lone surviving half-brother, Orville Staffenhagen — watched.

"We're sure proud to have him coming home," Staffenhagen said.

The family plans a funeral and burial with full military honors Saturday in Akeley, a city of 450 northwest of Brainerd.

Staffenhagen said he and his half-brother were part of a large blended family with 12 kids. Their mother, Irena, had nine children with her first husband, Robert Todd. When he died at a young age, she married Alfred Staffenhagen, had two more children and adopted a third.

Five of the boys served in World War II, including Neal, who was 22 when he died. Three others in the family, including Orville, served after the war ended.

Neal was born in Bemidji, graduated from high school in 1938 and spent two years working on the family farm before he enlisted.

Orville said he was just 8 years old and at school one day when Neal stopped by to say goodbye before heading off to join their older brother, Wesley Todd, in the Navy. It was the last time the two would see each other.

Neal and Wesley both served on the USS Oklahoma in Hawaii, Neal as a Navy fireman first class. What the family knows about Wesley and Neal's time on the ship comes mainly from weekly letters the two wrote to Irena.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Wesley had finished his shift and Neal was on duty when the Japanese warplanes attacked. Torpedoes struck the Oklahoma, killing 429 sailors and sinking the vessel.

Water filled the ship, trapping Wesley behind a partly opened hatch. Two sailors helped him remove his uniform and greased his body so he could slip through the hatch in a desperate bid to save his life. He soon found himself floating in the harbor, rising quickly to gulp air as Japanese fighter pilots strafed the water with gunfire.

For weeks afterward, Wesley thought Neal might still be alive. A sailor told him that his brother had been assigned to another ship but didn't know which one, he wrote to Irena.

"As the weeks go on, there's more panic," said Anthony Staffenhagen, Orville's son. He quoted from one of Wesley's letters: "I still haven't heard from Neal. Have you heard from him?"

The family finally learned of Neal's fate in March 1942 when the Navy reported him as missing in action. Even then, for years afterward, people sometimes claimed to see Neal near his hometown, Anthony said. Irena would show people Neal's picture, hoping for a match.

"It was a pretty trying time for my mother," Orville said.

Neal Todd was awarded the Purple Heart in January 1944, and the American Legion post in Akeley was named for him.

The Navy recorded some 394 sailors and Marines from the Oklahoma as unaccounted for as recently as 2003, when the Defense Department ordered the first disinterment of the unknowns from their burial site at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. By 2010, six sailors had been identified.

In 2015, a broader effort to identify all the unknowns began, and as of December, some 281 identifications had been made. The Staffenhagen and Todd families hoped they would see Neal's remains identified, and several women from the family provided DNA samples several years ago. More recently, Defense Department officials asked three of the Todd men for samples.

The military made a match with Neal in February, and on March 29, they notified the Staffenhagen family. Orville's wife, Delores, said they received a phone call at home.

"My husband broke down really, really hard," she said.

The funeral service will be Saturday at Our Lady of the Pines Catholic Church in Nevis, Minn. A procession will carry Todd's remains to Akeley, past the school he attended, before the casket is placed in a carriage and taken to Akeley Cemetery for burial near his mother. The Navy will conduct the burial with an honor guard and bugler.

On Thursday, an airport police car led a convoy of military officials, family members and reporters to meet the Southwest Airlines jet that carried Todd's casket to Minnesota. Orville and Delores were asked to step forward as the plane's rear hatch was opened.

The flag-draped casket appeared, and six sailors carried it to the hearse. Neal Todd, forever 22, was back home with his family.

Matt McKinney • 612-673-7329