WASHINGTON, D.C. — Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Joseph W. Hoffman, 24, of Chillicothe, Ohio, killed during World War II, has been accounted for.
Hoffman was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Multiple torpedo hits caused the USS Oklahoma to capsize quickly. Hoffman was among the 429 crewmen who died as a result of the attack.
Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew from December 1941 to June 1944, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries.
Members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries in September 1947 and transferred them to the Schofield Barracks Central Identification Laboratory. Only 35 men from the USS Oklahoma could be identified at that time by the laboratory staff. AGRS later buried the unidentified remains in 46 plots in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, popularly known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. A military board classified Hoffman, among others, as non-recoverable in October 1949.
In June and November 2015, DPAA personnel exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from the Punchbowl for analysis.
DPAA scientists used anthropological analysis to identify Hoffman’s remains. Additionally, Y-chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis was performed by scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.
Among the others who remain missing from WWII is Hoffman, whose name is listed on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl. There will be a rosette next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.
Hoffman will be buried in August. The exact location of his burial has yet to be announced.