Georgia sailor who died in Pearl Harbor attack identified through DNA testing

A Georgia sailor will be laid to rest on Thursday, more than 82 years after he was killed during the attack on Pear Harbor. 

Shipfitter 3rd Class John Donald was one of the 429 sailors lost on the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. The station reported that the 28-year-old, from Marietta, was identified on April 11, 2018. 

The attack took the lives of 2,403 U.S. personnel and destroyed or damaged 19 U.S. Navy ships.

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While the majority of the sailors who were lost were marked as unidentified and laid to rest in caskets, the USS Oklahoma Project by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has worked with genealogists to track down relatives of those killed on the USS Oklahoma.

The process began in 2003, with the disinterment of a single casket of “unknown” USS Oklahoma remains. Upon analysis, the casket was found to have contained the partial remains of nearly 100 individuals. 

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The project has collectively accounted for all personnel lost during Pearl Harbor and was able to individually identify all but 334 of the remains. There was a ceremony for those families in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 2021. 

“It’s a mission that does not stop. And we are overjoyed every time there is an identification just like we are for this family. And at the end of the process we hope that the family gets the closure they were looking for and that it was handled in an honorable way,” Lt. Commander Jory Morr, who served as the Branch Head of POW/MIA, told the station.