Black sailor killed at Pearl Harbor FINALLY identified more than eight decades after 19

Release time：2024-05-21 17:52:09 Source：Stellar Stories news portal

The remains of a black sailor who died during Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have finally been identified more than 80 years later.

David Walker was 19 when he dropped out of his African American high school in Norfolk, Virginia, to serve as a mess attendant in the segregated navy.

He was on the battleship USS California, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the vessel was hit by two Japanese torpedoes and sank in the early minutes of the infamous attack on December 7, 1941.

Walker was one of 103 casualties who died on the USS California that day - more than 50 of which were African American mess attendants, cooks, and stewards.

Last month, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced they had finally found and identified Walker's remains.

Walker's closest surviving relative, his cousin Cheryle Stone who was born 30 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, told DailyMail.com it was 'heartbreaking' his mother was not alive to witness this moment after never giving up the search for him. 

The remains of David Walker, a 19-year old black sailor who died during Pearl Harbor, have finally been identified more than 80 years later.

He was on the battleship USS California during the raid on Pearl Harbor. The vessel was hit by two Japanese torpedoes and sank

The remains of those on board USS California were recovered between December 1941 and April 1942 and buried in the Halawa and Nu'uanu Cemeteries. 

During the first round of identification after the attack, 42 casualties were named. 

In September 1947, the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of the casualties and transferred them to the Central Identification laboratory at Schofield Barracks.

But the laboratory staff were only able to confirm the identifications of 39 men from the USS California at that time.

The unidentified remains were subsequently buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. 

And in 1949 a military board determined the remains of the unresolved crew members, including Walker, to be non-recoverable.

But then in 2018, the DPAA exhumed the remains of 25 unidentified sailors from the Punchbowl.

Through anthropological, dental analysis, and mitochondrial DNA analysis, forensic scientists from the DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System were able to identify Walker's remains in November 2023. 

Walker's name is among the many missing soldiers engraved on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl in Hawaii. Now he has been accounted for, a rosette will be placed next to his name.

Walker will be buried on September 5, 2024 in Arlington National Cemetery.  

His mother, Edna Lee Ward, who died in 1951 from heart problems, had tirelessly searched for her son after the attack on the USS. She walked into a newspaper office in 1942, carrying a picture of her son, and asked if they could put his picture in the newspaper 

His mother, Edna Lee Ward, who died in 1951 from heart problems, had tirelessly searched for her son after the attack on the USS. 

In 1942 she had even walked into a newspaper office carrying a picture of her son and asked if they would print it in the newspaper - which they did.

His father had died of typhoid in 1923 when Walker was aged just one, according to government records. 

While Edna, who worked as a seamstress, later remarried, she did not have anymore children. 

Walker's cousin Cheryle Stone, from Pittsburgh, told DailyMail.com she felt sorry for his mother.

'His mom had been looking for him all that time, it was heartbreaking,' she said.

Stone said Edna had called and talked to her son for the last time just a few days before Pearl Harbor.

'I feel for the families. So many of their loved ones have never been identified,' she added.

'The war is over, but people don't think about whose left afterwards. There are so many families that continue to suffer.'

Walker had grown up in Norfolk, Virginia, which was segregated at the time. He attended Portsmouth's I.C. Norcom High School, founded as an early high school for Black students, but dropped out to join the navy.

As an African American, Walker was only permitted to work as a mess attendant. 

Matthew F. Delmont, a professor of history at Dartmouth College and author of 'Half American,' a study of African Americans during World War II, told the Washington Post: 'Mess attendants were the lowest rank on the ship.

'They did the cooking and cleaning, essentially at the service of white officers. It was an important role for the overall functioning of the ship. They're the ones who managed the galleys and made sure everyone got fed.'

'It was the only role, at least initially at the start of World War II, that Black men could take … in the Navy,' he added. 

Delmont said finding Walker's remains serves as an important reminder that there are still dozens of Black mess attendants who died and have not been identified, and so many more families that still don't have answers.

Through anthropological, dental analysis, and mitochondrial DNA analysis, forensic scientists from the DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System were able to identify Walker's remains in November 2023

'They were mourned by their communities, in the same way that white Americans mourned those who were lost at Pearl Harbor,' he told the Washington Post. 'But I think it also is a window … into the segregation and discrimination that those Black Americans faced in the service of their country.'

'David Walker and most of the Black men … from Southern states attended segregated high schools,' he added. 'They were in segregated communities. And then they entered into a segregated military, where they encountered racism and discrimination pretty much every day of their lives.'

The Navy remained racially segregated in training and service units until 1942 when the enlisted rates opened to all qualified persons, per the U.S. Navy's History and Heritage Command website page.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians, according to the Census Bureau. Nineteen U.S. Navy ships, including eight battleships, were destroyed or damaged during the raid. 

Related articles