Pearl Harbor Sailor’s Remains Could be Identified

TROPHY CLUB, Texas (AP) _ The sister of a naval officer believed killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor is awaiting the results of DNA tests that may identify her brother’s remains more than six decades after the infamous attack.

Earlier this month, 88-year-old Meryl Patton — who lives in the North Texas town of Trophy Club near Fort Worth — was contacted by the U.S. Navy’s casualty office.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports officials asked her for a DNA sample.

Patton’s brother was Starring Winfield — a 22-year-old petty officer third class in the Navy stationed on the USS Oklahoma when Japanese torpedo bombers fired on the ships along “Battleship Row.”

The remains of 44 sailors who couldn’t be identified are buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. But in the last six years the government has started using mitochondrial DNA to try to identify the men.

It is unknown how long it will take to get the results from Meryl Patton.

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