Sailor from Marietta who died in Pearl Harbor attack identified through DNA testing
Marietta sailor killed in Pearl Harbor attack identified
For decades, Shipfitter 3rd Class John Donald was one of the hundreds of unidentified sailors who lost their lives during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now thanks to DNA testing, he'll be finally laid to rest in honor at Arlington National Cemetery.
MARIETTA, Ga. - A sailor from Marietta will be laid to rest on Feb. 9, more than 82 years after he was killed. Shipfitter 3rd Class John Donald was one of the 429 sailors lost on the USS Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
December 7th, 1941 was a day that changed U.S. history. The attack killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, destroying 19 U.S. Navy ships.
"The USS Oklahoma was one of the ships that was destroyed during the Pearl Harbor bombing. Unfortunately 429 sailors were lost in that particular attack and directly following, there were only 35 who were able to be correctly identified," said Lt. Commander Jory Morr.
The vast majority of those sailors were laid to rest in caskets, marked as unidentified. That is until the start of the USS Oklahoma Project by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. The program works with geneaologists to track down relatives of those killed on the USS Oklahoma.
Lt. Commander Morr served as the Branch Head of POW/MIA.
"Our contracted genealogists go out and identify as many of the family members as they can. They create a family tree for us, and then we start reaching out to contact whoever we can," he said. "The remains of the soldiers who were buried were disinterred and testing was done on those remains. And then on our side we were in charge of not only tracking down family members of the sailors but then obtaining DNA samples that would be given to the lab at DPAA, and they were in charge of matching the family DNA samples with the DNA samples from the remains of the sailors."
Of the 429 lives lost on the USS Oklahoma, they were able to identify all but 33 of the remains. The 33 sailors who could not be identified were reinterred in a cemetery in Hawaii. There was a ceremony held for the families on Dec. 7, 2021.
Shipfitter 3rd Class John Donald, a 28-year-old from Georgia, was identified on April 11, 2018, 27,884 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After more than 80 years, there are mixed reactions from families.
"Some of the families actually react in a way that they didn't even really know that they had a family member who died in Pearl Harbor," Morr said. "Some families are very well aware and have followed the cases closely and are really seeking that closure. So we see both sides of it."
All families then work with the Navy to plan a funeral for the sailors. Some decide to bury their relatives in local cemeteries, others at Arlington National Cemetery. That's where John Donald will be laid to rest.
"It's a mission that does not stop. And we are overjoyed every time there is an identification just like we are for this family. And at the end of the process we hope that the family gets the closure they were looking for and that it was handled in an honorable way," Morr said.
Closure that's arrived 82 years later, for the lives lost in an attack that shaped the history of the country, and the world.