Sailor’s Remains Identified 82 Years After Pearl Harbor

On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S.S. California, the flagship of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, was moored on “battleship row” at Pearl Harbor when it was struck by Japanese torpedoes and bombs. The ship caught fire, flooded and sank over the course of three days, and 103 crew members were killed.

Officials were initially unable to identify all of the victims and the remains of 25 “unknowns” were buried in Hawaii.

But on Thursday, officials announced that they had used advanced forensic technology to identify one of them as David Walker, a 19-year-old mess attendant third class from Norfolk, Va.

“It is our duty to bring them home,” said Sean Everette, a spokesman for the Defense P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Agency, or D.P.A.A., an arm of the Pentagon whose mission is to find and return missing military personnel. “It’s a promise fulfilled to the service member,” he said, adding that “we also owe it to the families to give them answers.”

Mr. Walker, who attended high school in Portsmouth, Va., before he joined the Navy, will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in September, officials said.

A marker signifying that he has been accounted for will be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.