On the early morning of December 7, 1941, ground troops at Scofield Barracks in Honolulu were waiting in the breakfast line in the mess hall, and Seamen aboard the USS Oklahoma were enjoying their Sabbath respite when an alarm sounded, announcing an air attack of unbelievable force. In the minutes that followed, Seaman Houston Temples of Varnado became one of the first of Louisiana’s sons to give his life in the Second World War.
Almost eighty-one years later, in June of this year, his family was notified by the Navy that his remains have been identified and are to be brought by air to New Orleans so that burial in Washington Parish may be accomplished according to the family’s wishes.
A spokesman for Magic City Post 24 in Bogalusa has provided the following information: The officers and members of Post 24 are humbled by the honor bestowed on us by Seaman Temples’ survivors when they asked that we lend our presence and resources to his final rites. Visitation will be welcome and will begin at 12:00 noon on December 7, in the Convocational Chapel at the Veterans’ Memorial Hall on Highway 10 adjacent to the Pearl River Bridge in Bogalusa.
The funeral service will commence there at 1:00 P.M. and burial will follow in the Veterans’ Plot in Ponemah Cemetery. Poole-Ritchie Funeral Home will preside.
Houston Temples was one of the 2,400 Americans, mostly young Americans, who gave their lives that day, and this recent identification of his remains and those of a number of other servicemen, would seem to fill in a gap in the sequence of our country’s history and also gives us all a poignant reminder of the price our people have paid for freedom.
