Pearl Harbor John Does (1941-Arizona)

Pearl Harbor John Does are about 70 unknown United States Navy servicemen who were killed on the USS Arizona (BB-39) during the Pearl Harbor attack. Overall, 1,071 men are unaccounted for from the USS Arizona.

Pearl Harbor Attack[]

At about 7:48 a.m. on December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service conducted a surprise military strike against the United States at the naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The first wave of 140 Japanese bombers and 43 aircraft fighters targeted the eight battleships along Ford Island and the nearby airfields. Shortly thereafter, the second wave of airstrikes inflicted additional damage, although this time the surviving US force was more prepared. The attack was over within 90 minutes.

The USS Arizona was one of the eight battleships moored at Battleship Row. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., the Japanese bombers struck the battleship with a torpedo and eight bombs. One of the bombs passed through one of the battleship's forward magazines. This caused a cataclysmic explosion which destroyed much of the front of the ship and caused the ship to quickly sink into the bottom of the harbor.

Overall, 2,335 American servicemen and civilians were killed in the attack and 1,178 were wounded. Of the 2,535, 1,177 were on the USS Arizona. Additionally, 21 US ships had been sunk or significantly damaged and 347 of the 402 US aircraft was destroyed or damaged. The surprise attack led US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to declare December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". The following day, the US Congress declared war on Japan, which led to the United States' formal entry into World War II.

Aftermath[]

Due to the excessive damage, the USS Arizona was the only battleship not to be raised and repaired for service, although some of the ship was able to be salvaged. Of the 1,177 servicemen killed, it is believed that the remains of 985 of them are still buried on the ship and are considered unrecoverable. In 1962, the USS Arizona Memorial was built on top of the hull without touching it to commemorate those that were killed or survived in the attack and is visited by 2 million people annually.

Between the day of the attack and 1944, the remaining sailors and Marines killed on the USS Arizona whose remains could be recovered were buried at the Halawa Naval and Nuuanu Cemeteries. In September 1947, 1,516 sets of remains were disinterred to be identified at the Schofield Barracks Central Identification Laboratory. At the time, the laboratory made 105 positive identifications among those on the USS Arizona who were buried as "Unknown." The remaining 85 unknown servicemen associated with the USS Arizona were buried in 76 separate graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, AKA the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 2015, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began to exhume unknown servicemen associated with the USS Oklahoma, USS West Virginia, USS California, and USS Nevada to forensically identify them. On June 17, 2019, during the exhumation and identification of the USS Oklahoma crew, they discovered Radioman 2nd Class Floyd Wells, who was actually from the USS Arizona and had been mistakenly labeled as a USS Oklahoma unknown. Of the 1,072 USS Arizona crew members originally listed as unaccounted for, he remains the only one whose remains have been identified and accounted for as of 2022.

In 2021, the DPAA started to consider exhuming the remaining 85 unknown servicemen but to reinter them into the USS Arizona instead of identifying them because they lack DNA and dental records from most of the USS Arizona servicemen. This suggestion has proved unpopular with their surviving families, however.

Pearl Harbor John Does (1941-Arizona)

Contents

Pearl Harbor Attack[]

Aftermath[]

Gallery[]

Sources[]

Fan Feed