80 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, the family of a US sailor who was killed there was finally able to witness his burial.
Herbert Jacobson was interred at Arlington National Cemetery following the identification of his bones using current forensic techniques.
The family has “closure” now that they know what happened to the sailor, according to a nephew of the news agency AP.
He was one of the thousands of people killed or injured during the Japanese attack.
The unexpected Japanese attack on the Hawaii naval facility on December 7, 1941, drew the United States into the war.
21-year-old “Bert” Jacobson was one of 400 men who perished aboard the USS Oklahoma, one of four battleships sunk by Japanese torpedoes.
Before their bodies were retrieved two years later, many could not be identified.
Jacobson’s skeletal remains were identified in 2019 using the most recent DNA analysis, despite repeated attempts to identify all of the victims.
Tuesday, he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, across the river from Washington, DC. The ceremony was attended by descendants who had never had the opportunity to meet him due to the pandemic.
It brings us closure to finally know what happened to Bert, where he is, and that he is being laid to rest after being reported as missing for so long, his nephew Brad McDonald told the Associated Press.
After unsuccessful attempts to identify the Pearl Harbour victims, including using dental records, a fresh campaign was launched in 2003, followed by another in 2015, to use more advanced identification methods, including DNA.
These efforts gave Jacobson’s family new hope; according to the Associated Press, Bert’s mother sobbed every 7 December because she never knew where he was.
Pearl Harbor was the bloodiest attack on American soil before the September 11 terrorist strikes in New York in 2001.
Within two hours of the 1941 attack, over 2,400 Americans had been killed and the majority of the US Pacific fleet had been damaged or destroyed.
The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and the United States entered World War Two.
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii is an operating naval facility, a museum, and a national memorial to the victims of the assault.
