Navy Sailor Who Died In Pearl Harbor To Be Buried This Weekend In Anne Arundel County

LINTHICUM, MD — A sailor who died in the Pearl Harbor attack will be buried this weekend in Anne Arundel County.

Many of the victims of the 1941 air raid in Hawaii went unidentified for decades. A 2015 policy change allowed the government to exhume the unidentified victims from their graves to identify the sailors and return their remains to their families.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency last year identified the veteran coming to Maryland as Seaman 1st Class William Brooks. The sailor was born to the late William and Lillian Brooks on July 19, 1922.

Brooks joined the Navy at 18 and went to boot camp at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois. The 19-year-old from Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, was assigned to the USS Oklahoma at the time of his death.

Identifying The Remains

Japanese aircraft attacked the battleship on Dec. 7, 1941. The USS Oklahoma quickly capsized.

The assault killed 429 crew members, including Brooks. The Navy spent the next 2.5 years recovering the remains of the sailors and burying them in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries.

The government in 1947 ordered the American Graves Registration Service to recover and identify the troops who died in the Pacific Theater of World War II. At the time, the laboratory could only identify 35 of the men aboard the USS Oklahoma.

The group then buried the unidentified remains in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. A military board in 1949 classified those who could not be identified as nonrecoverable, including Brooks.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the unknown remains from the PunchBowl between June and November 2015 to try to identify the other veterans. The agency used dental and anthropological analysis to identify Brooks. The Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis during the process.

The lab analysis eventually helped officials identify Brooks on May 19, 2021.

Military Burial In Maryland

The seaman's remains were flown to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport last Tuesday, the airport's fire department said. An honor guard of first responders welcomed Brooks' dignified arrival.

Residents can attend the burial at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Glen Burnie on Saturday at 11 a.m. Brooks will be laid to rest beside his brother, Estle “Bud” Powers.

The burial will come nearly 81 years after Brooks' death and three days before what would've been his 100th birthday.

Brooks' surviving relatives include his:

• Nephew: Kenneth Powers
• Niece: Linda Dowling and her husband, Drew
• Great-nephews: Mike and Randy Powers
• Great-nieces: Julie Szego and Karen Robinson
• Great-great-nieces and nephews: Mike Powers Jr., Sherrie Powers, Ryan Szego and Zach Robinson

The veteran's obituary is posted here.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story said Brooks' remains were scheduled to arrive in Maryland on Tuesday, July 12. That was incorrect. His remains actually arrived Tuesday, July 5. His burial is still scheduled for Saturday, July 16.