Pearl Harbor 79th Anniversary: Finding the USS Oklahoma Unknowns-- Part 1

Continued from today's post on my Cooter's History Thing blog.

Of the 2,403 American deaths at Pearl Harbor, 429 were from the Oklahoma.  Of those, only 35 were recovered and identified.  That means there were 394 unaccounted for.

In fact, most of the men who lost their lives that day were not recovered until 1943,m when the vessel was finally uprighted and searches able to be made.  By then, there wasn't much left.

Eventually, all the recovered unidentified remains were  buried together in communal graves at the National Memorial Cemetery  of the Pacific in Honolulu, better known as the Punch Bowl.  That's where they stayed until 2015 when they were disinterred for DNA analysis.

In the five years since, the USS Oklahoma Project  has resulted in 279 identifications.

And, there is hope that they will be able to make a dent in identifying the final 115.  Of those, sadly, so far there has been no family members known for 25 of the men.  That means they will remain unidentified, sadly.

Here's Hoping for Their Identification.  --GreGen