Navy Seaman First Class James R. Ward, 20, was on the U.S.S. Oklahoma when a Japanese aircraft attacked the ship on December 7, 1941.
He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and accounted for on August 19, 2021.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) says as the order was given to abandon ship, Ward sacrificed his own life by holding a flashlight so the turret crew could escape.
Navy personnel recovered the crews’ remains during the 1940s and buried them at a cemetery in Hawaii.
The DPAA has been exhuming and identifying the remains previously labeled as “non-recoverable.”
Ward will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on a date yet to be announced.
