Pearl Harbour Sailors Return Home After 77 Years

A number of family members have been waiting 77 years for their relatives to return from Pearl Harbour. Now, they're finally coming home.

Thanks to advances in DNA technology, previously unidentified US sailors and marines killed at Pearl Harbour are being laid to rest in their hometowns.

Some will be buried today, marking the 77th anniversary of the attack, including Carl David Dorr - one of the 429 sailors and Marines who died on board the USS Oklahoma when it was hit in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The men died when the ship capsized on Battleship Row after being hit by numerous bombs and torpedoes.

CNN/Dorr Family

Despite the large number of those who were killed, according to the Defence Department, only 35 were identified and given a proper burial following the attack on 7 December 1941.

However, CNN reports that as of earlier this month, the Defence Department - helped along by a push from a Pearl Harbour survivor - has used advancements in technology to successfully identify 186 sailors and Marines who were previously unidentified.

Since then, a number of exhumed remains have been returned to the relatives in order to receive a proper burial or ceremony - including Carl, whose remains were picked up by 15 relatives on Wednesday at South Carolina's Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.

Speaking about the moment they watched a flag-draped coffin lower from the plane into a hearse, Carl's 70-year-old nephew, Thomas Dorr, said: "There was nothing but dead silence.

"I knew that what I was experiencing was history."

PA

Another to be interred today is Durell Wade, who was born in 1917 in the Hardin Town community of rural Calhoun County. His nephew, Dr. Lawrence Wade - who was one of the relatives to provide DNA to help identify the sailor - said: "Once this DNA process came along and made it possible to identify his remains, it just made him much more of a real person to me."

Another is William Bruesewitz, of Appleton, Wisconsin, who will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on this momentous anniversary.

"It's a real blessing to have him returning and we've chosen Arlington because we feel he's a hero and belongs there," said William's niece, Renate Starck.

"We always have thought of him on December 7. He's already such a big part of that history."

Topics: World News, Interesting, History, World War II

EMS 7

Daisy is a UK-based freelance journalist with too many opinions. She loves everything film and music-related and has a track record writing for Little White Lies, BWRC, and Film Daily. Contact her at [email protected]