Sailor who died in Pearl Harbor attack aboard USS West Virginia has been identified
by Wyatt Olson
• Stars and Stripes • January 6, 2022
Seaman 1st Class John R. Melton was a 23-year-old sailor aboard the USS West Virginia when he died during the Dec.
FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Tuesday that it had identified a 23-year-old sailor who died aboard the battleship USS West Virginia during the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The remains of Seaman 1st Class John R. Melton, a Mississippi native, had rested for decades in a gravesite marked “unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.
His identification was part of an ongoing project to identify crew members of the ship who were buried as unknowns because their bodies were too burned or disfigured to allow positive identifications in the wake the attack.
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2022-01-06/pearl-harbor-attack-sailor-remains-identified-uss-west-virginia-4198173.html
