The Defense POW / MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Navy Metalsmith 1st Class Leonard F. Smith, 29, of Albany, New York, who was killed during World War II, will be held accountable on April 16, 2020. Petty Officer Smith was held accountable for April 2020, but his family only recently received full briefing for his identification.
On December 7, 1941, Smith was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma, which was anchored on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was attacked by Japanese planes. The USS Oklahoma suffered multiple torpedo hits, which quickly capsized. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crew members, including Smith.
From December 1941 to June 1944, naval personnel found the remains of the deceased crew, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries.
In September 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) dug the remains of the US victims from the two cemeteries and took them to the Central Identification Laboratory in Schofield Barracks. Laboratory personnel were only able to confirm the identifications of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma at the time. The AGRS then buried the unidentified remains in 46 gravesites at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In October 1949, a military committee classified those who could not be identified as unrecoverable, including Smith.
Between June and November 2015, DPAA employees exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from the punchbowl for analysis.
To identify Smith’s remains, DPAA scientists performed dental and anthropological analyzes. In addition, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR), and autosomal DNA (auSTR).
Smith’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who went missing in World War II. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate that he has been billed.
Smith will be cremated on September 1, 2021. The family has chosen not to hold a funeral service. For family and funeral information, contact the Navy Service Casualty Office at (800) 443-9298. DPAA thanks the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of the Navy for their partnership on this mission.
For more information on the Department of Defense’s mission to be responsible for Americans missing while serving in our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil and find us on social media at www.facebook. com / dodpaa or https: // www .linkedin.com / company / defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.
Smith’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000XgPaEAK.
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