(KMOX) - Nearly 80 years after Navy Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class William A. "Billy" Klasing was killed on the battleship USS Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor, the St. Louis-area native's remains will be coming home to be laid to rest this weekend. And the community is working together to make it a very special welcome home celebration.
Trenton, Ill., the Clinton County town about 35 miles east of St. Louis, is planning to hang 350 American Flags along the town's main street when Klasing passes by on the way to his final resting place.
A motorcade will accompany Klasing's remains, beginning at 4 p.m., Friday in New Baden, Ill. They will travel east on Hanover to Route 160, then turn north towards Trenton, then turn east on old Route 50 before proceeding through downtown Trenton to Moss Funeral Home in Breese, Ill.
Residents in the towns of New Baden, Breese, and Trenton, Ill. are all being asked to line the streets of the route on Friday afternoon as his body passes by.
His remains went unidentified until about seven years ago. His niece Linda Rakers (rockers) says a Navy Anthropologist used the DNA of a third cousin who she didn't even know and some preserved saliva from letters William had written to his mother.
She calls the match, which was confirmed in February, "a CSI moment."
"When we got the call that his remains had been identified, I mean it just brought tears to my eyes," Rakers says.
A graveside service with full military honors, rendered by the U.S. Navy will be held on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. at Trenton Cemetery.
Klasing was 19-years-old when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese aircrafts on Dec. 7, 1941. He was one of 429 men aboard the USS Oklahoma who died.
There are still thousands of soliders who's remains are assessed as possibly-recoverable, but still unaccounted for from World War II.
More details of Klasing obituary and arrangements can be found here, at the Moss Funeral Home website.