Tri-Service

US To Exhume Pearl Harbor Dead

The remains of almost 400 unaccounted for US sailors and Marines killed at Pearl Harbor are to be exhumed later this year, the country's Department of Defense has announced.

429 US servicemen were killed on board the battleship USS Oklahoma after it was hit by torpedoes and sunk during the Japanese attacks on the naval base on December 7, 1941.

USS Oklahoma capsizing after being struck in the Japanese attacks

In the years immediately following the attacks, 35 crew members were positively identified and buried.

It's now hoped, however, that due to advances in forensic science and technology, including the use comparison of DNA with surviving family members, it'll be possible to identify the majority of the rest of the crew members.

Service members who are identified will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work said:

“The secretary of defense and I will work tirelessly to ensure your loved one’s remains will be recovered, identified, and returned to you as expeditiously as possible, and we will do so with dignity, respect and care. While not all families will receive an individual identification, we will strive to provide resolution to as many families as possible.”

The disinterment is part of a new broader US policy of identifying remains of unknown servicemen and returning them to their families.

It applies to all unidentified remains from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and other permanent American military cemeteries, but not the sailors and Marines lost at sea or who remains entombed in U.S. Navy vessels serving as national memorials.