Serviceman to be laid to rest in Massachusetts more than 80 years after his death at Pearl Harbor
By Sarah Dewberry, CNN
(CNN) — Over 80 years after he died during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, a Massachusetts service member will finally be laid to rest in his hometown.
The Town of Chatham announced Thursday that Gov. Maura Healey ordered the American flag and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts flag to fly at half-staff from sunrise to sunset in honor of Petty Officer Second Class Merle Chester Joseph Hillman.
Hillman, 25 years old at the time, was onboard the USS California on December 7, 1941, when two torpedoes and a bomb struck the ship during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, according to a profile page on the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s website.
The ship slowly sank over the next three days, claiming the lives of over 100 sailors and Marines, says the profile.
According to the profile, Hillman’s remains, although unidentified, were recovered after the attack, and he was buried as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed 25 unknown remains associated with the ship in 2018, according to a news release.
Officials said scientists from the agency and Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used techniques including anthropological, Y chromosome DNA, and mitochondrial DNA analysis to identify Hillman’s remains.
Hillman, a pharmacist, had served in the navy for six years at the time of his death, according to a news article included in the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s news release.
Hillman was identified on October 20, 2023, and will be buried Saturday in Holyoke.
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