SAN ANTONIO — More than 70 years after World War II ended, a San Antonio sailor who was killed in 1941 while aboard the USS Oklahoma has been accounted for.
Today, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) shared that Navy fireman 3rd Class Jasper L. Pue, Jr. from San Antonio Texas was accounted for on April 16, 2019--- 78 years after his death.
Pue, who was 21, at the time of his death, had been assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma.
On December 7, 1941, the ship, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, was attacked by Japanese aircraft.
The USS Oklahoma suffered multiple torpedo hits, which caused the ship to capsize. 429 crewmen died as a result of the attack on the ship.
Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew over the next three years but were only able to confirm the identities of 35 men at the time. The unidentified remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl.
In 2015, DPAA personnel exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknown remains from the Punchbowl.
Scientists were able to identify Pue's remains using dental and anthropological analysis, along with circumstantial and material evidence.
For further confirmation, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
A rosette will be placed next to Pue's name on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl to show that he has been accounted for.
Of the 16 million Americans who served in the Second World War, more than 400,000 died. 72,692 remain unaccounted for.