Naval aviator killed at Pearl Harbor laid to rest 81 years later after being identified by DNA

A U.S. Navy serviceman killed on Dec. 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor was laid to rest in a funeral with full military honors on Tuesday, more than 81 years after the attack, thanks to DNA.

Ensign Stanley W. Allen was buried at Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Augusta, Maine, with several of his family members in attendance. Maine was Allen’s home state.

Allen was 25 years old when he was killed. Before his body was identified and returned to Maine, he was buried with unknown soldiers at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

A naval aviator, Allen was trained to fly a spotter seaplane from the USS Oklahoma. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Allen was one of 429 sailors who died on the battleship. The Oklahoma rolled over with many people trapped inside and on deck.

For decades after the attack, 388 soldiers who died at Pearl Harbor remained unidentified. Then, in 2015, the military began an operation to exhume their remains and identify the deceased using DNA analysis. The program has identified more than 350 of the 388 service members.

“[Families] want their loved ones home, and we’re happy to help them in that process,” said Michael Linnington, a retired Army lieutenant general who led the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency at the time.

Allen graduated from Bowdoin College and joined the military in 1940, enlisting in the U.S. Naval Reserves as World War II raged in Europe and Asia. He trained at Naval Air Station Pensacola before being assigned to Observation Squadron One.

The Oklahoma itself was salvaged in 1943, but it was too badly damaged to return as a battleship. It was eventually stripped and scrapped.

With News Wire Services