WASHINGTON – The Department of Defense (DoD) announced that it has launched a new organization to help account for missing service members. This new organization, which combines a number of existing agencies, will have complete oversight to account for missing personnel in our nation's past conflicts.


In response to this reorganization, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called on the Department of Defense to use this new organization to help identify the bodies of 22 service members who were killed aboard the USS Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Murphy has asked the DoD multiple times for its assistance in helping the families of those lost aboard the USS Oklahoma provide their loved ones with a proper burial in their community, or a marked grave in military cemetery in Hawaii.


“The Department of Defense’s decision to create a new organization to help identify missing military personnel will give countless military families peace of mind. By reorganizing this division of DOD, more members of the military who were lost in action can be identified and receive the respectful burial they deserve. I’m confident that this new organization will help the DOD identify the missing sailors of the USS Oklahoma. These heroes – who made the ultimate sacrifice – died protecting our great nation and deserve a final resting place of their families’ choosing.”


Four hundred and twenty nine sailors were killed when the U.S.S. Oklahoma was torpedoed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1943, when the Oklahoma was salvaged and raised, most of the remains of the sailors classified as “unknown” were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. For nearly 70 years, the family members of these men never knew the final resting place of their loved ones.