WASHINGTON — A Navy sailor killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II has been identified.
Navy Mess Attendant 3rd Class Isaac Parker of Woodson, Arkansas was accounted for on Sept. 8, 2020.
Parker will be buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis County on June 8, 2021. Parker’s primary next of kin lives in Florissant.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Parker was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was anchored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft.
The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Parker, a news release stated. He was just 17 years old at the time.
From Dec. 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew, which were buried in the Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries.
In September 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) removed the remains of U.S. casualties from the cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.
The laboratory staff was able to identify 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time, the release stated. The AGRS buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.
In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified as non-recoverable, including Parker. Between June and November 2015, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) exhumed the USS Oklahoma unknowns for analysis.
To identify Parker’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis and scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Parker’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with others who are missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to show he has been accounted for.