WASHINGTON — The remains of a Utah sailor killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Thursday.
Navy Radioman 3rd Class Theodore Q. Jensen, 22, of Delta was aboard the USS Oklahoma when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941. The attack killed 429 crewmen aboard the battleship, including Jensen.
The Navy recovered remains from deceased crewmen from Dec. 1941 through June 1944, with those remains being interred in the Halawa and Nu'uanu Cemeteries in Hawaii. The American Graves Registration Service disinterred those remains in 1947 so they could be properly identified.
Jensen's remains were not identified by 1949, but using dental and anthropological analysis on unknown remains exhumed in 2015, officials were finally able to identify Jensen on Dec. 17, 2020.
In his honor, Jensen's name was originally recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. A rosette will now be placed by his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Jensen will be buried in Delta on June 2.
