The USS Arizona burns after being struck by Japanese bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. (U.S. Navy/National Archives)
The federal agency responsible for identifying fallen American service members will seek exhumation of dozens of unknowns from the Pearl Harbor attack once an advocacy group is confirmed to have reached the required mark in its genealogy work.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has drafted a request for permission to disinter 86 sets of commingled remains from the USS Arizona buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, as well as 55 sets of remains with no known ship affiliation, DPAA director Kelly McKeague said Thursday in response to questions.
Defense Department policy requires a general threshold of family reference samples from 60% of the “potentially associated service members” before it will disinter a group of unknown service members for identification.
In the case of the Arizona, that means 643 families. Once it’s notified that the threshold has been reached, the agency will seek final approval from the Defense Department, McKeague said.
The request would be directed to William Fitzhugh, who is temporarily holding the position of assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, the agency said.
As of Tuesday, the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory had DNA from 613 families and is awaiting additional test kits, McKeague said. The two-year undertaking was carried out by the advocacy group Operation 85.
It was started in 2023 by Virginia-based real estate agent Kevin Kline after he was told at a DPAA family update meeting that the agency would not identify the unknowns from the ship anytime soon. Kline is the grandnephew of Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Kline, a gunner’s mate who remains missing.
The Dec. 7, 1941, attack by the Japanese on the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii claimed the lives of 1,177 sailors and Marines on the Arizona.
Today, 1,071 are still missing, McKeague said. Most remain in the ship’s submerged hull, which is today part of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial complex.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Kline, a gunner’s mate aboard the USS Arizona, was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. (Kevin Kline)
A woman pays respects at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 5, 2022. The memorial honors 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed in the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941. (Ernesto Bonilla/U.S. Navy)
The U.S. government had just 25 USS Arizona families on file shortly before Operation 85 began its efforts, according to a Navy report to Congress in March 2022.
The report estimated it would cost approximately $2.7 million and take 10 years to track down enough families for DNA acquisition to reach the Defense Department threshold for disinterment, the report states.
A year earlier, McKeague told families during an update meeting that preliminary discussions had taken place about potentially entombing the unknowns back in the ship.
Kline said he got so mad that he decided to do the work himself. He put his career on hold and put up about $75,000 of his own money.
Kline brought in research analysts and a forensic genealogist. They tracked down the appropriate family member DNA donors and worked with the Navy and Marine Corps casualty offices to send DNA kits to the families through the mail.
Kevin Kline, executive director of the USS Arizona family group Operation 85 and grandnephew of Arizona sailor Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Kline, poses with an Operation 85 hat in his Virginia office on November 20, 2025. (Operation 85)
Since then, they have tracked down 1,415 family members from 672 families that have pledged their participation. The group needs only 30 of the 59 outstanding families to turn their kits in to hit the goal, Kline said.
“What DPAA is preparing to do now is exactly the mission we built the foundation for,” Kline said. “When the system said ‘no,’ families stepped forward and made ‘yes’ possible.”
James Silverstein, a California attorney and maternal grandnephew of Pearl Harbor casualty Petty Officer 2nd Class Harry Smith, said he got choked up when he heard the news.
“So much hard work and dedication has gone into something that should have been so uncontroversial, yet has been so difficult to receive approval for,” he said. “It will be such a glorious homecoming and well-deserved sendoff when they are identified.”
James Silverstein, grandnephew of USS Arizona sailor Petty Officer 2nd Class Harry Smith, poses with Smith's Purple Heart and the associated documents on March 27, 2025. (James Silverstein)
