Updated October 15, 2018


Remains of a sailor killed during World War II are being returned home to Tennessee for burial.


Governor Bill Haslam’s office says Navy Seaman 2nd Class William Campbell of Elizabethton was serving on the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor when the Hawaii base was attacked by Japan on December 7th, 1941.


Crewmembers were buried in multiple cemeteries after attempts to identify remains, but only 35 men from the ship were identified. Unidentified remains were buried in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, known as the Punchbowl.


In 2015, an agency began exhuming remains from the Punchbowl for identification. Campbell was identified using DNA evidence in May.


Haslam declared a day of mourning and ordered flags at half-staff in Campbell’s honor this past Friday.