by Dennis Dalman
After 76 years, Elmer Tom Kerestes is finally coming home a hero, to be buried July 29 with full military honors near his parents in a cemetery on land where he used to play as a boy – land that once belonged to his grandfather.
Kerestes was among the first Americans to be killed on the eve of America’s entry into World War II. It happened when U.S. Navy Fireman First Class Kerestes was serving duty on board the USS Oklahoma, a battleship docked in Pearl Harbor at Honolulu, Hawaii. On the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, a vicious sneak attack by Japanese war planes and torpedoes decimated the fleet of American ships in the harbor, killing more than 2,300 Americans, including 429 sailors and U.S. Marines on the capsized USS Oklahoma, including Kerestes.
In a radio address, President Franklin Roosevelt called Dec. 7 a “Day of Infamy.” The assault propelled the United States into declaring war on Japan, thus plunging America into the thick of World War II in the Pacific and in Europe.
After the attack, bodies were painstakingly recovered from the harbor, but it was impossible to identify most of them. Later, Kerestes’s presumed remains, along with others, were buried in a cemetery in Honolulu. His family back home was of course devastated. Kerestes received a posthumous Purple Heart.
Many decades passed. Then, in 2015, the U.S. Navy decided to exhume the remains at Honolulu to determine if new technological methods could identify at least some of them. Kerestes’ remains were positively identified in March 2017, primarily via DNA analysis.
Kerestes, who was only 22 at the time of his death, was born Dec. 1, 1919 in Holdingford Township, the son of Thomas and Anna (Hrabosky) Kerestes. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy Aug. 22, 1939.
The VFW Post 5160 is named in honor of Kerestes and Joseph Troxil, a U.S. Navy man who died at sea during World War II.
Kerestes is also honored as part of a Soldier’s Memorial in Holdingford next to St. Hedwig’s Church. The memorial, which includes flags, flowers and statuary is a tribute to four Holingford men who lost their lives in World War II: Kerestes; Troxil; Walter R. Mattson, who was killed in the battle to retake St. Lo, France from the Nazis; and Walter Krystosek, who died during the invasion of Anzio Beach, Italy.
Funeral, burial
The full-military-honor burial for Elmer Tom Kerestes will take place at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, July 29 at Highland Cemetery near Holdingford.
Kerestes’ remains were driven from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on Interstate-94 to the Patton-Schad Funeral Home in Melrose, a motorized procession involving law-enforcement personnel, the Legion Riders, the Patriot Guard and relatives.
On burial day, the procession will leave the Melrose funeral home at 9:45 a.m., proceed east on CRs 65 and 157 through Freeport to Albany, then east on CR 54 to Avon and finally north on CR 9 to Holdingford.
At Holdingford, the procession will turn west and proceed along Cedar Street to Main Street, then north to CR 17, where it will turn left and then again north on CR 9 a mile north to Highland Cemetery.
Traffic northbound on CR 9 closer to the cemetery will be restricted for the funeral service, but southbound traffic will stay open.
Parking is available at Holdingford High School and at the Holdingford Township Shop site on CR 9. There will be shuttles operating from the high school and the shop site to and from the cemetery.
After the funeral service, the relatives of Kerestes will have food and refreshments available at the American Legion in Holdingford.