Ala. sailor killed at Pearl Harbor ID’d

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Arnold Austin of Warrior, Ala., was accounted for in September 2018, 77 years after his death on board the USS Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. USS Oklahoma was moored at Ford Island at Pearl Harbor when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Austin, who had enlisted in the Navy in 1920 at the age of 15, was trapped with others on the ship but found a porthole beneath the water that provided an escape. He is credited with assisting 15 sailors in escaping, though he did not get out – one of 429 fellow crewmen. He was 36-years-old. Austin was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross in recognition for actions. The USS Austin, an escort destroyer, is named in his honor. In 2015, the Pentagon restarted efforts to identify sailors from USS Oklahoma and began exhuming their remains. Austin was identified by scientists using mitochondrial DNA, dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. (Source: AL.com 01/09/19) Warrior, Ala., is 24 miles north of Birmingham.