DETROIT, Michigan (WJRT) – Eight decades after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy has identified the remains of a Michigan sailor who died aboard the USS California.
The battleship was moored on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii when Japanese planes attacked the base on December 7, 1941.
Navy Seaman 2nd Class Tceollyar Simmons, 18, of Detroit, was one of 104 crew members who died on the USS California. The battleship received several torpedo hits, which caused a massive fire and slowly flooded the ship.
The US military was only able to identify the remains of 39 victims aboard California in the 1940s. The 65 unidentified crew members were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
The accounting agency Defense POW/MIA exhumed the remains of 25 unidentified crew members from the USS California in 2018. Examiners used a careful process of dental, anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis to identify them .
Simmons’ remains were officially identified on November 18, 2021. The military recently made contact with his descendants and announced that he had been officially identified.
The family will take custody of Simmons’ remains and have him buried in Alabama next June.