The Defense Department has not made a decision about the remains of 85 sailors and Marines who died aboard the USS Arizona that are currently buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
“The 85 Unknowns of the USS Arizona are only a small part of the total population of Sailors and Marines from that ship who made the supreme sacrifice on Dec. 7, 1941,” said DoD spokesperson Air Force Lt. Col. Tamara Fisher Carter.
Of the 1,071 unaccounted-for Arizona crewmen, 985 are interred in the ship’s hull, which has been an iconic memorial of service and sacrifice as well as their eternal resting place, she said.
Fisher Carter said identifying the 85 Unknowns buried at the cemetery – work that is done by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency – is complex for a number of reasons.
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“First, the Department of Defense only has 12 DNA family reference samples (FRS) on hand and would need multiple types of FRS from at least 630 more families,” she explained. “Also, there is a lack of historical documentation with which to make comparisons against the remains - approximately 65 percent have an Individual Deceased Personnel File on file and approximately half of those have a recorded stature, so anthropological analysis will be very limited; and only 130 have dental records on file, so odonatological analysis will be even more limiting.”
Fisher Carter said the Defense Department is committed to providing the fullest possible accounting of the fate of America’s missing in action and POWs to both their families and the nation.
“DPAA must apply its limited resources in a manner that is equitable to families, and to do so as efficiently and effectively as possible,” she said.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
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