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Tag: U.S. Navy
Remains of 19-year-old Virginia sailor killed in Pearl Harbor attack identified
A Virginia man who was killed in World War II has been accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week.
David Walker, 19, was assigned to the battleship USS California when it was torpedoed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Walker was one of 103 crewmen who died on the ship during the attack, the DPAA said. Remains from the ship were recovered by U.S. Navy personnel and interred in Hawaii cemeteries, including the the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the 25 men who were buried as “Unknowns” were exhumed.
The remains were analyzed with anthropological and dental analysis by the DPAA and mitochondrial DNA analysis by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Now that Walker has been identified, a rosette will be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in September, the DPAA said.
According to Walker’s personnel file, he was from Norfolk, Virginia. There was no information available about surviving relatives, or when Walker entered the U.S. Navy. According to a news clipping shared by the DPAA, Walker enlisted in the U.S. Navy about one year before his death. Another news clipping said that he left high school early to enlist. According to one of the news clippings, Walker’s mother, identified as Edna Lee Ward, asked a local reporter to place Walker’s photo in the newspaper to announce his death at Pearl Harbor.
Kerry Breen
More than 3,000 US troops reach Red Sea amid Iran tensions
More than 3,000 U.S. sailors and Marines reached the Red Sea on Sunday aboard the assault ship USS Bataan in response to Iran’s “harassment and seizures of merchant vessels,” according to the U.S. Naval Central Forces Central Command.
“These units add significant operational flexibility and capability as we work alongside international partners to deter destabilizing activity and deescalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels earlier this year,” the U.S. Fifth Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Tim Hawkins said in a statement shared with The Hill.
The arrival is part of a preannounced military deployment, the U.S. Naval Central Forces Command said. Hawkins said it signals the country’s “strong, unwavering commitment to regional maritime security.”
The assault ship arrived Sunday after traveling from the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal. The U.S. Naval Central Forces Central Command said the USS Bataan and dock landing ship USS Carter Hall bring “additional aviation and naval assets, as well as more U.S. Marines and Sailors, providing greater flexibility and maritime capability to the U.S. 5th Fleet.”
The U.S. Naval Central Forces Central Command also said the assault ship can carry more than two dozen rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft and “several ambitious landing craft.” The dock landing ship will be used in operations for multiple rotary-wing aircraft, tactical vehicles and amphibious landing craft.
Since 2019, Iran has seized several ships in the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf in an attempt to pressure the West over negotiations over its collapsed nuclear deal with world powers. Tensions have continued to rise since the Trump administration withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement and reinstated sanctions, according to The Associated Press.
The Associated Press contributed.
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