Defense Department IDs sailor killed at Pearl Harbor

March 22 (UPI) -- Scientists identified the remains of a 21-year-old sailor who died more than seven decades ago during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Defense Department announced Friday.

Navy Electrician's Mate 3rd Class Roman W. Sadlowski, a native of Pittsfield, Mass., died Dec. 7, 1941, aboard the USS Oklahoma, which capsized after multiple torpedo hits.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency named Sadlowski as part of a renewed effort to identify hundreds of sailors and Marines killed during the Pearl Harbor attack in Hawaii and buried in unnamed graves. The DPAA began exhuming the remains in 2015 from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl.

Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis, circumstantial and material evidence and mitochondrial DNA analysis to identify Sadlowski's remains.

Sadlowski's name appears on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl, where a rosette will be etched next to his name to indicate his identification.

More than 2,400 people were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack that brought the United States into World War II.

Earlier this month, the DPAA identified the remains of a number of other sailors killed aboard the USS Oklahoma, including Navy Fireman 3rd Class Willard I. Lawson, Navy Seaman 1st Class Joseph K. Maule and Navy Seaman 2nd Class Richard J. Thomson.