SOMERSET, Ky. — The remains of a sailor from Kentucky who died in the World War II attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified, officials said.
Authorities used DNA as well as dental and anthropological analysis to identify Navy Seaman 2nd Class Floyd D. Helton, 18, of Somerset, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Wednesday in a statement.
Helton was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941, and capsized, resulting in 429 deaths.
A majority of the remains recovered from the ship weren’t identified and were buried in 1949 in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Officials began exhuming the remains in 2015 in an effort to identify them.
Helton’s remains will be buried July 31 in Burnside, officials said.
