WWII veteran recounts Pearl Harbor attack
Veteran Armando ‘Chick’ Galella remembers Pearl Harbor 78 years later.
A U.S. Navy sailor killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor has been identified and is set to be buried in Kentucky.
Navy Fireman 2nd Class Martin D. Young was on the USS Oklahoma when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941.
“The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, which caused it to quickly capsize,” explained the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), in a statement. “From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries.”
REMAINS OF USS OKLAHOMA SAILOR KILLED IN PEARL HARBOR IDENTIFIED, TO BE BURIED IN TEXAS
Young, who was 21 years old when he died, was among 429 USS Oklahoma crew members killed in the attack.
Navy Fireman 2nd Class Martin D. Young, who was killed during the Pearl Harbor attack. (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
“In September 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater, members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks,” said the DPAA, in its statement. “The laboratory staff was only able to confirm the identifications of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time. The AGRS subsequently buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.”
The remains that could not be identified, including Young, were classified as non-recoverable by a military board in October 1949.
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Some 66 years later, between June and November 2015, personnel from DPAA exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from the Punchbowl. Dental and anthropological analysis was used by DPAA scientists to identify Young’s remains. Armed Forces Medical Examiner System scientists also used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis.
Young was accounted for on Aug. 19, 2019, the DPAA announced last week. The sailor will be buried on May 15, 2021, in Lewisport, Ky., according to officials.
The remains of another USS Oklahoma sailor, Coxswain Layton T. Banks, have also been identified, the DPAA announced in August. Banks, who was 20 at the time of his death, will be buried in Plano, Texas, on Oct. 24, 2020.
WRECK OF ‘ICONIC’ BATTLESHIP USS NEVADA THAT SURVIVED PEARL HARBOR AND ATOMIC BOMB TESTS DISCOVERED
In 2015 incredible images emerged of a U.S. Navy seaplane that was sunk during the opening minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Earlier this year researchers discovered the wreck of storied World War II battleship USS Nevada, which survived the Pearl Harbor attack and post-war atomic bomb tests. The wreck was discovered 65 nautical miles southwest of Pearl Harbor.
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this article.
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