US aims to exhume and identify 88 USS Arizona crew members buried as unknowns after Pearl Harbor

US aims to exhume and identify 88 USS Arizona crew members buried as unknowns after Pearl Harbor The U.S. military plans to exhume the remains of 88 sailors and Marines killed when the USS Arizona was bombed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and who were buried as unknowns in a Honolulu cemetery By AUDREY MCAVOY Associated Press March 5, 2026, 9:37 PM HONOLULU -- The U.S. military plans to exhume the remains of 88 sailors and Marines killed when the USS Arizona was bombed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and who were buried as unknowns in a Honolulu cemetery. It’s part of an effort to use advances in DNA technology to attach names to those the military was unable to identify after the aerial assault 85 years ago. The disinterments from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific are due to begin in November or December, Kelly McKeague, the director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, said Thursday in a statement. About eight sets of remains will be removed every two to three weeks, and the DNA will be compared with samples collected from family members of missing troops. Dozens of ships sank, capsized or were damaged in the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of the Hawaii naval base, which catapulted the U.S. into World War II. The identification effort follows earlier projects dating back a decade to use DNA for Pearl Harbor unknowns. The agency identified hundreds of crew members from the USS Oklahoma , USS West Virginia and other ships using similar methods. The Arizona sank just nine minutes after being bombed, and its 1,177 dead account for nearly half the servicemen killed in the attack. Today the battleship still lies where it hit bottom, with more than 900 sailors and Marines are entombed inside. Remains in that underwater grave will stay where they are. Only those in the cemetery will be exhumed. Robert Edwin Kline was a 22-year-old gunner's mate second class when he was killed on the Arizona. Kevin Kline, a real estate agent in northe...