Nebraska Airman Buried in Hawaii for 84 Years Returns Home

Cpl. Lester H. Libolt will rest in Nebraska on Nov. 13, ending an 84 year wait for his remains to return home.

The Airman was 21 when Japanese forces killed him at Hickam Field on Dec. 7, 1941. For decades, he lay in a grave in Hawaii marked simply as Unknown.

Adams & Swanson Funeral Home confirmed the burial schedule for the ceremony at Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell. Libolt will be buried next to his younger brother, Clarence, who also died in World War II.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirmed Libolt's identity in 2025. Scientists used DNA provided by his twin sister's family to match the remains. Loretta Augustus, the daughter of Libolt's twin sister Leona, selected the Nebraska location for the final interment.

Libolt was born on March 11, 1920, in Gregory, South Dakota. He grew up on a family farm near Carlock. His mother died when he was 12. The family later moved to Nebraska and settled near Burton and Newport.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 1939. The Army assigned him to the 50th Reconnaissance Squadron, 11th Bombardment Group, at Hickam Field on Oahu. Muriel Anderson, a soldier from Omaha, was with Libolt during the attack.

Anderson wrote to the Libolt family in a letter reported by the Capital Journal of Salem, Oregon, on Aug. 10, 1942. She described seeing Libolt run toward a section of the barracks during the second wave of the attack. That part of the building was destroyed shortly after.

Libolt was one of 182 Army airmen killed at Hickam Field that day. The attack on Pearl Harbor killed more than 2,000 Americans. The Army initially listed Libolt as missing in action.

His father, Lloyd Libolt, joined the Navy as a Seabee. He spent his free time searching for information about his son. Lloyd died in 1968 without finding an answer.

Navy personnel recovered the remains of Army personnel killed at Hickam and buried them at Schofield Barracks Cemetery on Oahu. In August 1947, the American Graves Registration Service moved the remains to a laboratory for identification. Twelve men could not be identified with the technology available at that time.

Those 12 men were buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Libolt's name was carved into the cemetery's Courts of the Missing. In June 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began exhuming the 12 graves.

Scientists at a DPAA laboratory confirmed the identity of one set of remains on June 11, 2025. Libolt's casket arrived at Denver International Airport from Hawaii with an honor guard present.