--- title: Inside the Quest to Name Pearl Harbor's Unknown Victims description: The military hopes the Oklahoma project, completed this year, could serve as a model for identifying remains of other soldiers, killed in other wars. canonical: https://time.com/6121892/pearl-harbor-anniversary-unknown-victims/ author: W.J. Hennigan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-11-23T13:00:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:33:42.551Z article:section: Politics og:title: Inside the 80-Year Quest to Name Pearl Harbor's Unknown Victims og:description: Over the past six years, an obscure unit inside the Pentagon has identified 361 men killed aboard the Oklahoma og:url: https://time.com/6121892/pearl-harbor-anniversary-unknown-victims/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a4a48862e35fad0/698a200109208ff3b441897f/pearl-harbor-soldiers-1.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2256 og:image:height: 1269 og:image:alt: pearl-harbor-soldiers-1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Inside the 80-Year Quest to Name Pearl Harbor's Unknown Victims twitter:description: Over the past six years, an obscure unit inside the Pentagon has identified 361 men killed aboard the Oklahoma twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a4a48862e35fad0/698a200109208ff3b441897f/pearl-harbor-soldiers-1.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Inside the 80-Year Quest to Name Pearl Harbor's Unknown Victims > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: UNKNOWN: Eighty Years After Pearl Harbor, Two Brothers Are Identified By DNA [Watch (HLS stream): UNKNOWN: Eighty Years After Pearl Harbor, Two Brothers Are Identified By DNA](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EZaceMGY.m3u8) (8:04)  _Published 2021-11-23. The DPAA is an obscure unit inside the Pentagon, which scours the globe for the remains of long-lost service members who vanished in the air, land or sea during combat. This short documentary from TIME takes viewers along as the DPAA utilizes DNA and forensic analysis to identify the Trapp brothers, and ultimately bring them home to their family._ Nov 23, 2021 1:00 PM UTC  by [W.J. Hennigan](https://time.com/author/w-j-hennigan/)  ## W.J. Hennigan Nov 23, 2021 1:00 PM UTC The seven sailors point their rifles skyward and fire three times in unison, shattering the silence at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The military salute signifies the end of an 80-year-old mystery that traces back to Dec. 7, 1941, the beginning of America’s involvement in World War II. Navy sailors Harold and William Trapp were presumed killed when their battleship U.S.S. _Oklahoma_ was hit by Japanese torpedoes and capsized in Pearl Harbor. The Trapp family waited for weeks, months, then years as the military worked to find the brothers’ remains and send them home. But there were few intact bodies left in the water that day, and as time went on, the remains aboard the _Oklahoma_ mixed together. The U.S. Navy declared the brothers dead despite never identifying them, a fate shared by most of the 429 sailors and Marines killed aboard the ship. Bound by the forensic limitations of the era, the military collected their remains and buried them in 46 common graves in the Honolulu cemetery under granite headstones that read: UNKNOWN. Now, eight decades later, the Trapp brothers and their shipmates are being laid to rest in graves bearing their own names. Over the past six years, an obscure unit inside the Pentagon called the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has identified 361 men killed aboard the _Oklahoma_. One by one, the graves have been exhumed, the remains analyzed and identified with advances in DNA technology and science. The military hopes the _Oklahoma_ project, completed this year, could serve as a model for identifying remains of other soldiers, killed in other wars. Based on its success, the DPAA believes there could soon be a day without any “unknown” military graves. On June 15, a bright, clear day at the cemetery known [as the Punchbowl](https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/nmcp.asp), the Trapp brothers are buried with full military honors in a ceremony attended by family members never given the chance to meet Harold and William. “I don’t think people understand what it means to have somebody who has been unidentified,” says Carol Sowar, the brothers’ niece. “Unless you go through it personally, you just have no idea what it means to have this closure.”  Carol Sowar receives an American flag at her uncles’ funeral at the national cemetery in Honolulu Tech. Sgt. Rusty Frank—U.S. Air Force/Department of Defense **Harold was born in December 1916** on the northside of Chicago. William came 13 months later. They, along with their kid sister and Sowar’s mother, Irene, were raised 65 miles east in the rural town of La Porte, Ind., after their parents sought a slower pace of life for their family. Harold was serious and thoughtful, with aspirations of becoming an engineer. William, meanwhile, was more happy-go-lucky and free-spirited. The brothers were inseparable. Nearly every family photo shows them together—Harold, a head-taller than William—and if one of them isn’t in the picture, it’s usually because he’s the one taking it. The brothers took odd jobs together, picking fruit, caddying at the local golf club or trapping muskrats and selling the fur. So, on May 4, 1939, when William chose to enlist in the Navy, Harold joined him. It wasn’t uncommon at the time for family members who enlisted together to serve in the same unit or on the same ship. The brothers each went through training in their respective specialties. William, an electrician’s mate, reported for duty aboard the _Oklahoma_ in August 1939 and Harold, a fire controlman, followed eight months later. By that time, the ship was beginning to conduct exercises off Hawaii. The brothers sent photos back home showing their delight with their new island life: wearing leis around their necks, balancing pineapples in the palms of their hands or standing triumphant atop a windswept mountain. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Harold, 24, was on deck of the _Oklahoma_ while William, 23, was working below, according to their family. The ship was moored in the shallows of Pearl Harbor’s “Battleship Row,” and unbeknownst to the brothers, formations of Japanese dive bombers, torpedo planes and fighters were already headed their way. A little before 8 a.m., the first torpedo exploded into the side of the ship. Plumes of water climbed into the air as more torpedoes tore into the ship’s steel hull. The _Oklahoma_’s crew manned battle stations and tried to fight back, but it had been hit eight times within the first ten minutes. The ship listed and capsized when the ninth—and final—torpedo struck. Sailors jumped into the scalding, oil-slick water to avoid strafing runs. Some climbed across mooring lines to reach the nearby U.S.S. _Maryland_. When the bombs stopped finally dropping, the Japanese damaged or sank 21 ships. A total of 2,403 Americans died, 429 of which had been aboard the Oklahoma and 1,177 on the U.S.S. _Arizona_, the [wreckage of which still lies in Pearl Harbor](https://time.com/5745058/uss-arizona-after-pearl-harbor/) to this day. Typically, the Navy would not have attempted to recover the victims. The remains aboard the sunken _Arizona_, for instance, stayed with the ship. “That becomes their final resting place. It’s kind of like being buried at sea,” says Johnie Webb, director of outreach at DPAA. But because much of the Oklahoma was intact and there were sailors trapped alive inside, Webb explains, the Navy believed it might be able to salvage the ship and save the survivors. Indeed, rescuers drilled holes and saved 32 men. Later, Navy personnel worked to recover the fallen crew from December 1941 to June 1944\. But as the remains came in, laboratory staff was only able to identify 35 men. The rest were ultimately buried in mass graves at the Punchbowl. The Trapps were one of at least eight sets of brothers killed aboard the _Oklahoma_. “I just felt for those families,” Webb says. “It’s bad enough to lose one son, but to lose two or three in some cases… I can’t imagine the grief that they had to live with.”  From left: Harold Trapp, mother Lillie Trapp, father William E. Trapp, William Trapp, and family friend Lambert Zeephat in August 1939 Courtesy Carol Sowar **The attack on Pearl Harbor** occurred nine years before Carol Sowar was born, but in many ways, it shaped the course of her life. An entire side of the family was simply wiped out: no aunts, uncles nor cousins. There was a lasting sadness. Her mother, Irene Louise Trapp, grieved her older brothers’ deaths until she, herself, died in 2007. After their deaths, the family revered Harold and William. Photos of them were preserved like relics. They were gone, no doubt. But where? Were they at the bottom of Pearl Harbor? Or in an anonymous grave? The questions loomed for decades over Ray Emory, a Pearl Harbor survivor aboard the U.S.S. _Honolulu_ hit the same day the Trapp brothers likely died. He spent much of his life pushing the U.S. military to identify the unknown remains. In 2003, after years of research, Emory approached the military with folders containing sailors’ personal information. Armed with service records, dental scans and other evidence, he was convinced that modern science could identify remains of at least one of the buried service members. The military agreed to investigate. The first grave was exhumed that year and researchers were stunned to discover DNA signatures of more than 100 people in a single casket. The military made its first individual identification in 2008 and ID’d four more sailors over the next two years. The findings showed the promise of DNA and advances in dental, anthropological and genetic evidence in identifying the lost sailors, giving hope to hundreds of families living in limbo. But the Navy was against DNA testing on the _Oklahoma_, not wanting to raise the expectations of gold-star families only to let them down. Over time, the innovations and reliability in DNA technology could not be ignored. In 2015, the Pentagon overruled the service and instructed the caskets to be [disinterred and identified](https://time.com/5744117/missing-pearl-harbor-sailors/) using the latest DNA technology. The exhumation of the _Oklahoma_ victims took place between June and November 2015 and went through analysis at the DPAA laboratories at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, and at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The two labs, staffed by anthropologists, archaeologists and forensic odontologists, comprise the largest skeletal identification facilities in the world.  Forensic scientists cut postage stamp–size samples in bones and Tic Tac–size wedges from teeth and send them to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Dover, Del., for testing. Once extracted, the DNA is compared to reference samples from cheek swabs provided by living family members who are maternally related to the missing service member. The DPAA, which has been at work identifying remains not just from Pearl Harbor [but all American wars beginning with World War II](https://time.com/longform/korean-war-remains-hoover-jones/), maintains massive DNA banks. The agency uses DNA in about three-quarters of its cases. The agency did not have all the family reference samples from the _Oklahoma_. Some of the service members had no living descendants or were adopted; or family members simply never submitted. The DPAA ultimately identified 361 of the 394 unknown service members aboard, which is a 92% success rate. Most of the identified sailors and Marines were buried in the Punchbowl or in their hometowns. To identify William and Harold’s remains, DPAA researchers used mitochondrial DNA from Sowar, her brother and her two children, who all gave samples. Scientists then had to tell how each of bones that was a DNA match to the family belonged to each brother. “We were able to use dental as well as anthropological methods to individuate the brothers,” says Debra Prince Zinni, the DPAA laboratory deputy director. “We knew dentally, which skull belonged to which brother. And then the stature really came into play. Harold is several inches taller than William, so just from the length of the bones, we were able to determine which brother was which.” When the call finally came to Sowar in November 2020, she was dumbfounded. She was sad, of course, but also relieved to have certainty about her uncles’ fates. She thought of her mother, who would never have that satisfaction, and of her grandmother, who lived out the rest of her life without her two boys. “I just cried and cried and cried from relief,” Sowar says. After she watches her uncles laid to rest under their own headstones at the Punchbowl, Sowar feels as though she’s reached the finish line of a marathon. “I don’t know how I can explain it better than I feel… that this is where they belong,” she says. “And yes, it’s 80 years, and it took a long time to come home, but they’re home.” Shortly after the ceremony, Sowar walks into the cemetery’s [Courts of the Missing](https://pearlharbor.org/the-courts-of-the-missing/), which documents each service member who went missing-in-action fighting America’s wars throughout the Pacific. Standing in the afternoon sunlight, she scans the thousands of names chiseled into the stone walls until her eyes fall on her uncles’. There, next to each one, she places a gold rosette. The two men are now accounted for. _—With reporting by Nik Popli_ ## Transcript December 7, 1941. The Trapp brothers were assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma. The ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft, which caused it to quickly capsize. Resulted in the loss of life for 429 crew members. We were unable to identify these brothers. I've always said that, as a nation, we had the will and the funding to send those young men off to war. Now we should have the will and provide the funding to bring those young men back home. DPAA was established in 2015, having the mandate to search for, recover and identify the unknowns from World War Two to present. We like puzzles. Sometimes there's a puzzle that sits on a table and you get 98 of the pieces in place and then there's two pieces missing. I don't think you put the puzzle away. December 7 would come around, and it was really difficult for my mom to talk about it. I mean, we knew she had brothers, but it wasn't a topic until I was older. I think the story came to light when looking through pictures. They were just playmates growing up. She loved them dearly. Harold, or Hal, was very studious and wanted to be an engineer. William is the one who wanted to enlist, and because they were so close, they enlisted together on the same day. And it's been 80 years since they passed away. The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941. The USS Oklahoma capsized, trapping about 400 sailors and marines inside. The Trapp brothers, I just felt for those families. Getting the word that you've lost both of your sons. I can't imagine the grief that they had to live with. The Navy's policy is, the men that were on the ship, that becomes their final resting place. It's kind of like being buried at sea. The difference with the Oklahoma was, because they thought they could salvage the ship, they had Navy divers going in, retrieving the remains of those that had died. Right after the war, the U.S. Army Mortuary tried their best to identify these guys. And for whatever reason, various reasons, they couldn't identify them. And that's why they were transferred to Hawaii and buried as unknowns. As a nation, like this is how we move on. You know, because we didn't have the technology. So you have to move on. I don't think people understand what it means to have somebody who has been unidentified for 75 years. It affects the generations. My grandmother, she died from her grief and my mother, it did affect her. When the DPAA reached out to us it was just like a miracle. Families will always tell me, "Just bring me something." "My father, my brother, bring him back to us." Once we had the possibility of utilizing DNA, we realized that we could probably make some identifications of those individuals that had been buried as unknowns from the USS Oklahoma. Our identification process begins well before anything comes into our laboratory, so our historians and analysts are doing a lot of research. We have a case file on each one of our unaccounted-for service members. Their dental records, medical records, even just their age, stature, that we would use for our identifications. The USS Oklahoma was a long project. There's 208 bones in the human body, and there were 429 individuals on that ship. We were dealing with a highly-commingled set of remains. About a quarter of the ship was represented in one casket. We estimated that we'd probably do about 5,000 DNA samples. The identification that we're making is based on mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is something that's passed down through maternal lineage. And so anybody in that maternal lineage would have the same mitochondrial DNA sequence. They sent us the tests in the mail, we also got three tests for our children. So they had a good DNA sample or mitochondrial DNA sample. And then from there, we were able to use dental as well as anthropological methods to then individuate the brothers. So we knew dentally which skull belonged to which brother, and then the stature really came into play. So Harold is several inches taller than William. So just from the length of the bones, we were able to determine which brother was which. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced today that brothers Harold F. Trapp and William H. Trapp, who were killed during World War Two, were accounted for on November 24 of 2020. I simply want to recognize that there is grief, recognize that there is loss, and recognize that because of the advance of technology, we've now been able to correctly and fully identify. So it's my honor today to be with you to bring honor to this family. Carol, on behalf of the President of the United States, a grateful nation, and the US Navy, please accept this flag as a token of our appreciation for your loved ones' honorable sacrifices. Thank you We anticipated that we were going to be able to identify about 80% of the unaccounted for from the USS Oklahoma. And now that we're coming to a close, we've been able to identify over 340 individuals. We're not gonna find them all. But we're not gonna leave any stone unturned. We will pursue it until, you know, there's nothing more that we can do. That identification is really important. You just have no idea what it means to have this closure. 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