A U.S. Navy sailor killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor from Sherry, Idaho, is now described as “explained,” and his body is buried in his hometown.
Navy Firefighter 2nd Class Karl M. BradleyAt the age of 19, on December 7, 1941, the USS Oklahoma battleship moored on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor was attacked by a Japanese aircraft. This is a surprise attack that plunged the United States into World War II.
USS Oklahoma was capsized after being attacked by multiple torpedoes. The attack on the ship killed 429 crew members, including Bradley.
Bradley’s body was identified through a Defense POW / MIA Accounting Office project.
I first learned about this project in March after reading about it Obituary of William Eugene Blanchard, whose grandson Chris Blanchard lives here in Boise..
William Eugene Blanchard Also in USS Oklahoma, his body was identified in January and then returned to his family for proper burial.
Bradley and Blanchard are one of the more than 300 previously unexplained service members on the USS Oklahoma. Defense POWs / MIA Accounting BureauIs an agency within the US Department of Defense, whose mission is to recover US military personnel who are listed or inactive as prisoners of war from designated past conflicts.
From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the bodies of the dead crew members of USS Oklahoma and were subsequently buried in the Harawa Cemetery and Nuanu Cemetery, according to a press release from the agency.
In September 1947, members of the American Cemetery Registration Service dismantled the bodies of US casualties from two graveyards, tasked with recovering and identifying Americans who died in the Pacific War, at the Schofield Barracks Central Identification Institute. Transferred to. Laboratory staff were able to confirm the identities of only 35 men from USS Oklahoma at the time.
AGRS then buried an unidentified body in 46 plots of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as Honolulu’s Punchbowl. In October 1949, the Military Commission categorized those who could not be identified as irreparable, such as Bradley and Blanchard.
In 2015, Pentagon officials approved the phased dismantling of all USS Oklahoma caskets from the National Memorial Cemetery and transferred them to the DPAA Institute at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to begin DNA testing. DNA analysis was performed by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System’s DNA Identification Laboratory in Dover, Delaware.
Between June and November 2015, DPAA personnel unearthed an unknown number of USS Oklahoma from the Punch Bowl for analysis.
Until then, only six USS Oklahoma crew members were described.
Since much of the ashes are mixed in the casket, the accounting bureau will isolate the ashes, perform DNA tests on individual ashes, classify them, and ask the family for DNA samples to find a match over the past few years. I have been.
According to the agency, DPAA scientists used dental and anthropological analysis to identify Bradley’s body.
Bradley’s name is recorded on the missing wall of Punchbowl, along with others who went missing in World War II. According to the agency, the rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been described.
Bradley will be buried in his hometown on June 26th.
Scott McIntosh is an opinion editor for the Idaho Legislature. You can email him at [email protected] or call him at 208-377-6202. Follow him on Twitter @ ScottMcIntosh12.