LANSING — Representative Angela Witwer has sponsored a bill to honor Ensign Francis Flaherty, an officer in the Naval Reserve who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The bill would designate an section of highway M-50 as, “Ensign Francis Flaherty Medal of Honor Recipient 5 Memorial Highway.”
Ensign Francis Flaherty was killed aboard the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941 after Japanese bombing that drew America into World War II. An article from 2021 in the Lansing State Journal stated, “Flaherty’s body was entombed with the U.S.S. Oklahoma. When the ship was salvaged more than a year after the attack his remains were among those of 390 unidentified men onboard buried at Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.”
In 2019, Flaherty’s remains were identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. In September of 2021, Ensign Flaherty was laid to rest in Charlotte, Michigan next to his parents. Ensign Flaherty was posthumously given the Medal of Honor for his actions to save lives aboard the USS Oklahoma making him one of the first heroes of World War II. His Medal of Honor citation reads:
For conspicuous devotion to duty and extraordinary courage and complete disregard of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty, during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. When it was seen that the U.S.S. Oklahoma was going to capsize and the order was given to abandon ship, Ens. Flaherty remained in a turret, holding a flashlight so the remainder of the turret crew could see to escape, thereby sacrificing his own life.
If the bill becomes law, a sufficient amount of money will need to be raised to place road signs along highway M-50 denoting the honor afforded to Ensign Flaherty.
