CARY, N.C. (AP) – Dawn Silsbee and her siblings never knew their Uncle Bert – he died years before they were born. But they saw what his loss did to their family.
“Our grandmother openly wept, every year – every Dec. 7,” the North Carolina woman said. “And I think part of it was because she really didn’t know where Bert was.”
Bert Jacobson’s family has always known the details of his death: That he went down on the USS Oklahoma during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But his remains – and those of more than 400 other sailors and Marines who died on the battleship that day – were never identified, but were instead commingled in a dormant volcanic crater a few miles from Pearl.
Now, nearly three-quarters of a century after that day of “infamy,” their families might soon get the closure Bert Jacobson’s mother was denied.
Last month, the Department of Defense announced plans to exhume the Oklahoma remains at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, commonly known as the Punchbowl. Work is expected to begin in a few weeks, after the state health department issues the permits.