INDIANAPOLIS — His remains went unidentified for decades, but finally an Indianapolis sailor who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor has been found, officials said Tuesday.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said Navy Fire Controlman 2nd Class George Gilbert was accounted for on August 24, 2020 through dental, anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis.
The agency said Gilbert, 20, was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941. The ship capsized and 429 crew members were killed, including Gilbert.
According to the DPAA, Navy personnel recovered the crew who died from December 1941 to June 1944, and their remains were interred in Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries. In September 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service took the remains to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks, where only 35 men from the USS Oklahoma could be identified at that time. The American Graves Registration Service then interred the unidentified remains in Honolulu at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as Punchbowl. In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified as non-salvageable, including Gilbert, by DPAA.
In 2015, the DPAA exhumed the unidentified remains of the USS Oklahoma from the Punchbowl for analysis, which led to the identification of Gilbert.
Gilbert’s name is recorded on the walls of the missing at the Punchbowl, along with the other World War II missing. A rosette will be placed next to Gilbert’s name to indicate that he has been considered, the DPAA said.
Gilbert will be buried at the Punchbowl on June 6, 2022.