Pentagon Plans To ID Remains Of Hundreds Killed In Pearl Harbor
HARTFORD, Conn. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Military officials are working to return the remains of nearly 400 servicemen killed in the Pearl Harbor attack on the USS Oklahoma to their families.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced it would exhume and attempt to identify the remains of 388 sailors and Marines who were buried as unknowns after the war.
Altogether, 429 servicemen were killed aboard the Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941. Only 35 were identified in the years immediately after.
Hundreds were buried at cemeteries in Hawaii. In 1950, they were reburied as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific inside a volcanic crater in Honolulu.
The military is acting now because advances in forensic science and technology as well as genealogical help from family members have made it possible to identify more remains, said Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency spokeswoman.
"Technology now allows us to identify these remains by matching them to leftover items from these individuals -- the clothing they had, brushes that they left behind," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has worked for years on the effort to recover the remains.
Officials plan to begin the work in three to six weeks, Morgan said.
"It won't be a short process, but when I reached out to these families over the course of the last few years, universally they wanted this to happen," Murphy told WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau. "They felt a sense of distance from their loved one."
The New Haven Register reported this week that the remains of Third Class Fireman Edwin Hopkins are being transferred for burial next to his parents in Keene, New Hampshire. Hopkins was 19 when a Japanese torpedo sunk the Oklahoma.
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