Pearl Harbor Sailor Laid To Rest 77 Years Later

It’s been 77 years since Japanese forces destroyed his ship at Pearl Harbor, and Carl David Dorr has finally been laid to rest.

Dorr was one of 429 sailors and Marines who died when their ship, the USS Oklahoma, was torpedo-attacked by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941.

Dorr’s family was first told he was missing in action and then later told he was presumed dead. The years following the sinking of the USS Oklahoma, affectionately nicknamed “The Okie” by her crew, would only see 35 people positively identified from the wreckage. The unidentified remains were buried, together, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Recently, Pearl Harbor survivors have a made push for the US Defense Department to exhume those remains and use modern technology to identify the bones. Once identified, it’s the hope of these survivors that by laying their loved one to rest, they’ll finally find closure.

In 2009, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) got involved in the exhumation of several graves at the Memorial Cemetery which has lead to the identification of 189 sailors and Marines and the return of their remains to awaiting family members, eager to bring finally lay their loved ones to rest.