Remains of 17-year-old Pearl Harbor sailor identified, to be buried in Arkansas

The remains of 17-year-old Royle Bradford Luker, a sailor killed in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, were identified through DNA analysis and will be buried with full military honors in Plainview, Arkansas, his obituary said.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Luker was officially accounted for May 29, 2024, after authorities exhumed multiple caskets for modern forensic and DNA testing. The obituary from Cornwell Funeral Homes said his burial will take place May 30.

The obituary said Luker served “as a fireman third class in the United States Navy aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia” and was killed in the line of duty during the attack. The U.S. Navy said the West Virginia was moored at Ford Island when Japanese aircraft launched torpedoes that struck the battleship.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Luker had been listed as killed in action and interred as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, where his name was memorialized on the Courts of the Missing. The obituary said DNA from Luker and family members confirmed his identity decades later. “More than 80 years later, DNA from Royle Luker and a family’s willingness to share their DNA bridged the gap between loss and knowing,” the obituary said.

The obituary listed numerous honors attributed to Luker, including the Purple Heart and the Navy Presidential Unit Citation, along with campaign and service medals. It said he was the son of George F. Luker, a World War I veteran, and Nettie Estelle David Luker, and listed two nephews and a niece among survivors.

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