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Defense POW/MIA Accounting AgencyFulfilling Our Nation's Promise

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## News Release

# Missing WWII Sailor Is Identified (Livingston)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identifiedand returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Fireman 3rd Class Alfred E. Livingston, U.S. Navy, of Worthington, Ind. He will beburied on Saturday in Worthington.

On December 7, 1941, Livingston was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma when itwas attacked by Japanese torpedo aircraft and capsized in Pearl Harbor. The ship sustainedmassive casualties. Livingston was one of hundreds declared killed in action whose body was notrecovered. In the aftermath of the attack, some remains were recovered from the waters of PearlHarbor. One set of sailor’s remains was recovered and thought to be associated with the USSArizona losses. However, when efforts to identify the sailor failed, it was inconclusive what shiphe was assigned to and he was buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of thePacific, known as The Punchbowl.

In 2006, a Pearl Harbor survivor and researcher, contacted the Joint POW/MIAAccounting Command (JPAC) and suggested that the biological and dental information on file forthe unknown sailor may be correlated with Livingston’s personnel file. JPAC’s analysts studiedthe documentation and found enough evidence to support the researcher’s findings thatLivingston was actually recovered after the war even though he was originally listed as one of thehundreds of unrecoverable servicemen from the attack on Pearl Harbor. In February 2007, thegrave for the unknown sailor was exhumed.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists fromJPAC also used dental comparisons in the identification of Livingston’s remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420.

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