The US military plans to exhume the remains of 388 Americans killed in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in an unprecedented bid to identify troops using DNA testing, officials said on Tuesday.
The effort is to focus on sailors and Marines from the USS Oklahoma who have never been identified, more than seven decades since the surprise attack that launched the US’ entry into World War II.
The ship sank when it was it struck by Japanese torpedoes in the attack, killing 429 sailors and Marines. Remains of most of the crew could not be identified and were eventually interred at the US National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Under the Pentagon’s decision, the remains of 388 unidentified crew from the Oklahoma are to be disinterred from the cemetery and transferred to a US Department of Defense laboratory in Hawaii.
The lab, run by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, is to analyze the remains using forensic techniques, “to include DNA testing,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
“Recent advances in forensic science and technology, as well as family member assistance in providing genealogical information, have now made it possible to make individual identifications for many service members long-buried in graves marked ‘unknown,’” US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said in a memo.
The department “remains committed to fulfilling its sacred obligation to achieve the fullest possible accounting for US personnel lost in past conflicts,” Work said.
Identified troops are to be given burials with full military honors.
“While not all families will receive an individual identification, we will strive to provide resolution to as many families as possible,” Work said.
Work also approved a policy that could open the way to the exhumation of unidentified burials at other military cemeteries.
To permit exhumation, research must indicate that at least 60 percent of the troops to be disinterred can be individually identified, Work said. Pentagon experts also must collect family reference samples for comparison with any DNA taken from remains, as well as medical and dental records.
Tuesday’s move reflects the US military’s elaborate commitment to trying to find and identify those still missing from conflicts dating back to World War II.
The Pentagon sends teams every year to crash sites in the Pacific to look for air crew remains.
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