First graves of USS Arizona unknowns exhumed in project to ID missing crewmembers

Eight caskets containing unknown remains of service members killed on the battleship USS Arizona in 1941 were disinterred at a Honolulu cemetery for DNA identification.

Eight caskets of unidentified service members from the battleship USS Arizona were disinterred at a Hawaii cemetery for DNA identification. Service members with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency conduct a dignified transfer of unknown remains associated with the USS Arizona at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Nov. 2, 2026. (Kathy Duran/U.S. Air Force) Eight caskets containing remains of unidentified service members killed on the battleship USS Arizona in 1941 were disinterred at a Honolulu cemetery Sunday as a project commences to identify all crew members from the ship buried as unknowns. They were the first of 86 caskets to be exhumed at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also called the Punchbowl.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency conducted a dignified transfer Monday, bringing the remains to its forensic lab at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for identification work. The grave of a USS Arizona unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, is covered with plywood, Nov. 5, 2026, after being disinterred three days earlier. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes) The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Delaware will perform DNA testing. The exhumations were an “historic moment for our USS Arizona families,” said Kevin Kline, whose great uncle died on the ship and remains missing. “After more than eight decades, this marks a long-awaited step