Are There Still Bodies in Pearl Harbor? The Story of Those Left Behind

On December 7, 1941, 1,999 sailors, 233 soldiers, 109 marines, and 49 civilians lost their lives when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. One of the bombs the Japanese dropped onto the USS Arizona hit the forward deck, resulting in an explosion that ignited fuel stores and powder magazines, tearing the ship apart and lifting her from the water. Almost immediately, 1,177 sailors and marines were killed. The blast was so forceful, the destruction so complete, that many of the bodies could never be identified or recovered.

The USS Arizona became a burial site where visitors travel to honor their legacy by the thousands to this day.

Are There Still Bodies in Pearl Harbor?

Yes, the wreck of the USS Arizona still holds the remains of more than 900 sailors and marines, making it both a war grave and a memorial. Bodies from the USS Arizona were left aboard because many were either vaporized by the intense fires, trapped within inaccessible wreckage, or too badly damaged to be identified.

Of the 1,177 men who perished on board, only 107 were ever positively identified. When you look back and see images of the devastation, and imagine what it must have been like, it isn’t hard to understand how that’s possible.

Many bodies were simply never found, effectively cremated in the fires. There were bodies that had been removed from the ship when it was salvaged, but the remains were unidentifiable. They were placed in mass graves and later moved to the Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Many of the bodies that were located in the rear of the ship were left there as they were unidentifiable.

This was not only the case with the USS Arizona, but also the Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Utah. Although every effort was made to identify the bodies of those who were killed, in many cases it was simply not possible.

In total, 429 men were killed on the Oklahoma, though in the years after the war only 35 were officially identified. The remains of hundreds of others were buried in the Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. 

Modern Efforts to Identify the Fallen

Advances in DNA technology have enabled new efforts to identify bodies from the USS Arizona and other ships lost at Pearl Harbor.

In 2015, the pentagon launched a major project to exhume and identify remains of the USS Oklahoma dead using DNA from living relatives. Similar efforts continue today for other unidentified service members from Pearl Harbor.

However, for the USS Arizona, the wreck remains largely undisturbed. It is treated as a hallowed gravesite, and there are no plans to attempt full recovery of the bodies still entombed.