U.S. Military to Exhume 88 USS Arizona Unknowns for DNA Identification

The U.S. military plans a significant initiative to exhume the remains of 88 sailors and Marines from the USS Arizona. These individuals were killed during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently buried as unknowns in a Honolulu cemetery. This effort aims to leverage advancements in DNA technology to identify these service members, 85 years after the aerial assault that brought the U.S. into World War II.

Identification Efforts Begin This Winter

Disinterments are scheduled to commence in November or December from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Approximately eight sets of remains will be removed every two to three weeks. DNA from these remains will be cross-referenced with samples gathered from family members of missing service members.

The USS Arizona's Tragic History

The USS Arizona sank within nine minutes of being bombed, leading to the deaths of 1,177 personnel, representing nearly half of the servicemen killed in the attack. While over 900 sailors and Marines remain within the sunken battleship, only those interred in the cemetery will be exhumed for identification.

The mission to identify these 88 unknown service members builds upon successful previous projects that utilized DNA to identify hundreds of crew members from other Pearl Harbor ships, including the USS Oklahoma and USS West Virginia.

Overcoming Challenges Through Community Effort

Initially, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) expressed reservations about exhuming the Arizona remains due to limited family DNA samples. However, an organization named Operation 85, founded by Kevin Kline (whose great-uncle was among those killed on the Arizona), actively worked to locate families and facilitate DNA sample collection. To date, family members of 626 sailors and Marines, comprising nearly 60% of the missing crew, have provided DNA. This crucial effort paved the way for the planned exhumations.

The Road to Identification

The exhumed remains will undergo analysis at the DPAA lab at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. DNA samples will then be forwarded to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for further processing. The military newspaper Stars and Stripes was the first to report this decision.