WASHINGTON D.C., DC — After nearly 80 years, an Idaho sailor who died during the Pearl Harbor attacks has been accounted for and will be laid to rest in his hometown later this summer.
Carl Bradley of Shelley, Idaho was assigned to the USS Oklahoma, a battleship that was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when Japanese forces launched a surprise aerial attack on the base, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
The 19-year-old Shelley man and 428 other crew members died on the USS Oklahoma during the attack on Dec. 7, 1941.
From then until June 1944, deceased crew members' remains were recovered by the Navy and were buried at the Halawa and Nu'uanu Cemeteries.
Later on, in 1947, the American Graves Registration Service was tasked with identifying and recovering fallen personnel from across the Pacific Theater. At the time, the agency was only able to identify 35 of the men who served on the USS Oklahoma, the DPAA said in a statement.
The AGRS then buried the other remains in 46 unidentified plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. The DPAA classified the servicemen who couldn't be identified as non-recoverable.
More than 60 years later, in 2015, the DPAA exhumed the remains of USS Oklahoma crew members who were buried at the Punchbowl for new, modern analysis. Using dental records and two different types of DNA testing, among other ways, Bradley's remains were identified and accounted for on Feb. 5, 2021.
Bradley will be buried in his hometown of Shelley on June 26, according to the DPAA.
His name will still be recorded at the Walls of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific but now a rosette will be placed beside his name to indicate that he has since been accounted for, the DPAA said.
