WASHINGTON — The destruction of the USS Oklahoma came quickly. On Dec. 7, 1941, it was hit with numerous torpedoes and bombs during Japan’s fierce and shocking bombardment of Pearl Harbor, capsizing within minutes with hundreds of Marines and sailors inside. Some 429 service members were killed, and others survived to fight back from the nearby USS Maryland, which also was under attack.
More than 70 years later, the USS Oklahoma remained at the center of a battle. On one side was the Navy, which last year told the families of some of those killed that it was flatly against DNA testing on the commingled remains of 330 unidentified service members. On the other side were families that wanted to know when the military would return the remains of their loved ones.
The Pentagon has now decided to exhume unidentified remains held at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, do DNA testing, and return any identified remains to families that want them. Some families could decide to keep their loved ones at the national cemetery in Hawaii, but in individual plots with their own marker.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said this week that the Pentagon has been “considering the complexities of a decision to disinter unknowns buried as groups where the remains are commingled.”
The decision is sensitive, but Work made the case that recent advances in forensic science and technology and the help of families providing genealogical information has tipped the scales in favor of exhuming the commingled remains of those who died on the Oklahoma.
“Analysis of all available evidence indicates that most Oklahoma crew members could be identified individually if the caskets associated with the ship were disinterred,” Work wrote. “I thereby direct the Defense Department to coordinate with the Department of Veterans Affairs for the disinterment and individual identification, to the extent practical, of all unknown associated with the Oklahoma in the next five years.”
Work’s decision extends beyond the Oklahoma. He is establishing a broader directive that applies to all unknown military remains buried in national cemeteries from which exhumations are done to identify fallen service members.
When remains are commingled, evidence must suggest that at least 60 percent of those disinterred may be identified, Work said. For unknown individuals exhumed, there must be at least a 50 percent chance that an identity can be found. The Pentagon must do the research and collect DNA samples from family members to determine whether those possibilities exist.
The new policy does not apply to those whose remains are entombed in Navy vessels like the USS Arizona, which exploded and sank during the attack on Pearl Harbor, killing 1,177 officers and crewmen. The ship is the final resting place for 1,102 of them.
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