World War II Honoree
Killed in World War II
Walter Sidney Belt, Jr.
Branch of Service
U.S. Navy
Hometown
Ellsworth, Kansas
Honored By
Pearl Thomas
He was serving as a Seaman First Class on the USS Oklahoma when it was torpedoed by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. His unidentified remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In 2015, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency began exhuming the remains to identify the sailors. His remains were positively identified by DNA and dental records. He was to be reinterred on October 9, 2021 in Ellsworth Cemetery, Ellsworth, Kansas, next to his parents. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.