Mariettan killed at Pearl Harbor to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery
A Marietta man who died in the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, this month.
John Donald, shipfitter 3rd class, was serving aboard the USS Oklahoma, which was moored along Pearl Harbor’s Battleship Row when the attack occurred.
The USS Oklahoma sustained hits from three Japanese torpedoes before it started rolling to port, after which two more torpedoes caused the ship to capsize.
Donald was one of 429 sailors aboard the ship to die in the attack on the base which led the U.S. to enter World War II on the side of the Allies, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reports.
Donald was born in Ball Ground, in Cherokee County, on July 15, 1913, according to the Navy Personnel Command. He grew up in Marietta before enlisting in the Navy in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 6, 1940.
Donald’s duties aboard the Oklahoma included metalwork, pipefitting and repairing different parts of the ship. He received three promotions, culminating in the rank of shipfitter 3rd class on Sept. 1, 1941. Donald received numerous awards from the Navy, including the Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon and Good Conduct Medal.
In June 2015, DPAA personnel began exhuming the remains of unknowns related to the USS Oklahoma from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in Honolulu, Hawaii, known as the Punchbowl, for identification.
About three years later, in April 2018, Donald was accounted for after more than 75 years of anonymity.
His remains were identified through mitochondrial DNA analysis, anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence.
Lt. Cmdr. Jory Morr, the operations officer at Navy Casualty who led the project to account for the unknowns from the USS Oklahoma, told the MDJ families receive long-awaited closure from the identification efforts.
“Some families weren’t even aware that they had a family member that was in the Pearl Harbor attack, whereas other families have tracked it very closely, are very aware, and they are extremely thankful that that identification was made and that they’re able to finally lay their family member to rest in a place of their choosing,” Morr said.
Donald’s family did not wish to speak to media, though Morr said it is “a special thing for Donald to be buried in Arlington, amongst so many other military members that have been lost in the past.”
Morr added that the mission of the project was to identify all those lost aboard the USS Oklahoma.
“We’re always extremely happy for a family that does get an identification like this, so although it’s great for the family that got it, there’s still many more out there that are pending identification, not only from Pearl Harbor, but from all sorts of past conflicts,” Morr said. “The mission continues, but very fortunate that Donald was identified and that his family can lay him to rest.”