Two brothers killed at Pearl Harbor were identified and laid to rest side by side 80 years after the attack by Japan.
Harold and William Trapp enlisted together, served aboard the USS Oklahoma, and died along with over 400 others when the ship was torpedoed and capsized in 1941, Hawaii News Now reported on Tuesday.
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The two men had been buried in graves marked “unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, up until now. Their remains were identified last year by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, and the brothers are now buried at the same cemetery, but this time in graves with their names, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The family of the brothers was able to attend the memorial ceremony, which took place on Tuesday and included full military honors.
“More than anything, I wish my mother was here. She’s not. I am grateful that I can fulfill what would have been her greatest desire,” the Trapp brothers’ niece, Carol Sowar, said, adding, “They’re coming home with respect and dignity and the kind of ceremony that they deserve.”
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“We were so hopeful that they would just identify one of them. And they identified both of them,” said their great-nephew David Sowar. He added, “I will visit them often.”
“We know that, indeed, these are the brothers who sacrificed for our country, who stood tall, and made a difference,” Navy chaplain Randal Potter said at the ceremony, praying before their caskets, “From 1941 until today, Lord, we have awaited such a great moment as this.”
