Claude Ralph Garcia was returned home to Ventura, California 81 years after he died at Pearl Harbor (Picture: Fox/Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
The remains of a sailor who died in the December 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor have been identified and returned home 81 years after the attack.
Claude Ralph Garcia was 25-years-old when the Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the US Naval Base in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Garcia was a shipfitter second-class on the USS West Virginia, one of the first ships hit by torpedoes around 8am on the morning of the attack.
The Japanese sunk 21 US ships in the bombing, including the West Virginia. The US lost 2,403 military personnel in the attack, and a total of 106 sailors were killed onboard the West Virginia. For decades, 35 of those servicemembers from the battleship remained unidentified.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) holds a re-interment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, December 7, 2021 (Picture: AFP)
Garcia was one of those unidentified sailors. His remains were discovered on the ocean floor through salvage efforts, and he was originally interred as at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and is listed at the Honolulu Memorial, according to his American Battle Monuments Commission file.
Using modern DNA analysis and laboratory techniques, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency began efforts to identify over 72,000 US military personnel unaccounted for from World War II.
The government began identifying sailors buried in Honolulu in 2017. Garcia is the latest successful identification, and was officially accounted for on May 12, 2022.
The USS Nevada burns following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military (Picture: Getty Images)
Smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks during a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (Picture: AP)
Another one of Garcia’s shipmates, Machinist’s Mate First Class Keith Warren Tipsword, was identified in July. He was returned home to a cemetery in Beecher City, Illinois in November, according to a local obituary.
Garcia’s was returned home to Ventura, California on Tuesday – just before the 81st anniversary of the attack. His remains were escorted to a local cemetery by a Navy honor guard.
He was buried alongside his parents and siblings at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in the city, CBS Los Angeles reported.
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Claude Ralph Garcia was 25-years-old when the Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the US Naval Base in Honolulu, Hawaii.
