HONOLULU – The U.S. military plans to bury a sailor from the USS Oklahoma whose remains were unidentified for more than 70 years after he died in the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The Navy said Monday Machinist’s Mate 1st Class Vernon Luke of Green Bay, Wisconsin will be buried will full military honours at a veterans cemetery in Honolulu.
The 43-year-old was killed in action on Dec. 7, 1941. His funeral at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is scheduled for Wednesday.
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Luke was among nearly 400 sailors and Marines from the Oklahoma who were buried as “unknowns.”
The military exhumed the servicemen last year, saying advances in forensic science and technology had improved their ability to identify them.
Luke is the first to be reburied in Honolulu after identification.