WASHINGTON, DC - The remains of a US Navy sailor from Salisbury, killed aboard the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 have now been identified.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Monday that Navy Shipfitter 1st Class Charles F. Perdue, 32, was accounted for on Oct. 14, 2020.
The DPAA says Perdue's family just received a briefing on his identification, that's why the information is publicly being released now.
A Navy spokesman tells WRDE News it does not appear Perdue has any relatives still living in Salisbury. He will be buried on May 16, 2022, in Lancaster, California.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Perdue was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft. The USS Oklahoma sustained multiple torpedo hits, which caused it to quickly capsize. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including Perdue.
From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries.
In September 1947, tasked with recovering and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater, members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks. The laboratory staff was only able to confirm the identifications of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at that time. The AGRS subsequently buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In October 1949, a military board classified those who could not be identified as non-recoverable, including Perdue.
Between June and November 2015, DPAA personnel exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from the Punchbowl for analysis.
To identify Perdue’s remains, scientists from DPAA dental and anthropological analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used autosomal DNA (auSTR) analysis.
Perdue’s name is recorded on the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.