HONOLULU (AP) — The military says it has identified the remains of seven crew members missing since the USS Oklahoma capsized in the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency spokeswoman Maj. Natasha Waggoner said Monday that the military will release the servicemen's names once their families have been notified.
The agency in June began digging up the remains of nearly 400 USS Oklahoma sailors and Marines from a veterans cemetery in Honolulu where they were buried as unknowns. Within five years, officials expect to identify about 80 percent of the Oklahoma crew members now considered missing.
The military says it started the project because advances in forensic science and technology are making identification of remains more possible.
On Monday, officials exhumed the last four of 61 caskets containing the Oklahoma unknowns.