Remains of a Dawson sailor killed in World War II identified

ALBANY — The remains of Navy Lt. Julian B. Jordan, a Dawson sailor who died in the 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, are being returned to his family for burial Monday with full military honors in Bremerton, Wash.

According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s website, Jordan was a 37-year-old sailor assigned to the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941. The ship was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the attack by Japanese aircraft came.

The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, causing it to quickly capsize, the agency noted. The attack killed 429 crewmen, including Jordan. Only the USS Arizona had as many fatalities in the surprise attack that resulted in the United States entering World War II.

According to the DPAA, from December 1941 until June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of deceased crew members, who were interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries. In September 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of the slain military personnel and took them the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks, where staff members were able to identify 35 men from the USS Oklahoma.

Those whose remains could not be identified were re-interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified, including Jordan, as non-recoverable, the agency said.

In April 2015, the deputy secretary of defense issued a memo directing the disinterment of unknown remains associated with the USS Oklahoma, a process that started that June. DPAA personnel began a new attempt to ID the remains.

Scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA analysis, which matched three cousins, as well as circumstantial evidence and laboratory analysis, to include dental comparisons, which matched Jordan’s records, agency officials said.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died during the war, DPAA officials noted.