More than 80 years later, the remains of a Black sailor killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have finally been identified.
David Walker was 19 when he left his African-American high school in Norfolk, Virginia, to serve as a canteen attendant in the segregated Navy.
He was on the battleship USS California, moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, when the ship was hit by two Japanese torpedoes and sank in the opening minutes of the infamous attack on December 7, 1941.
Walker was one of 103 victims who died on the USS California that day – more than 50 of whom were African-American cafeteria workers, cooks and stewards.
Last month the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that they had finally found and identified Walker’s remains.
Walker’s closest surviving relative, his cousin Cheryle Stone, who was born 30 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, told DailyMail.com it was “heartbreaking” that his mother could not live to see this moment after never giving up the search for him.
The remains of David Walker, a 19-year-old black sailor who died during Pearl Harbor, have finally been identified more than 80 years later.
He was on the battleship USS California during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ship was hit by two Japanese torpedoes and sank
The remains of those aboard the USS California were recovered and buried at Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries between December 1941 and April 1942.
During the first round of identification after the attack, 42 victims were named.
In September 1947, the American Graves Registration Service exhumed the victims’ remains and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks.
But laboratory personnel at that time could only confirm the identification of 39 men from the USS California.
The unidentified remains were then buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP), known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.
And in 1949, a military council ruled that the remains of the unresolved crew members, including Walker, could not be recovered.
But in 2018, the DPAA exhumed the remains of 25 unidentified sailors from the Punchbowl.
Through anthropological, dental and mitochondrial DNA analysis, forensic scientists from the DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System were able to identify Walker’s remains in November 2023.
Walker’s name is one of many missing soldiers engraved on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl in Hawaii. Now that he has been settled, there will be a rosette next to his name.
Walker will be buried on September 5, 2024 at Arlington National Cemetery.
His mother, Edna Lee Ward, who died of heart problems in 1951, had searched tirelessly for her son after the attack on the USS. She walked into a newspaper office in 1942 with a photo of her son in hand, and asked if they could run his photo in the newspaper.
His mother, Edna Lee Ward, who died of heart problems in 1951, had searched tirelessly for her son after the attack on the USS.
In 1942, she had even walked into a newspaper office with a photo of her son in hand and asked if they would print it in the newspaper – which they did.
His father had died of typhoid fever in 1923 when Walker was just one year old, according to government records.
While Edna, who worked as a seamstress, later remarried, she had no more children.
Walker’s cousin Cheryle Stone, from Pittsburgh, told DailyMail.com she felt sorry for his mother.
“His mother was looking for him all this time, it was heartbreaking,” she said.
Stone said Edna called and spoke to her son for the last time a few days before Pearl Harbor.
‘I sympathize with the families. So many of their loved ones have never been identified,” she added.
“The war is over, but people don’t think about whose left hand next. There are so many families still suffering.”
Walker had grown up in Norfolk, Virginia, which was segregated at the time. He attended IC Norcom High School in Portsmouth, founded as an early high school for black students, but dropped out to join the Navy.
As an African American, Walker was only allowed to work as a cafeteria worker.
Matthew F. Delmont, professor of history at Dartmouth College and author of “Half American,” a study of African Americans during World War II, told the Washingtonpost: ‘Mess attenders were the lowest rank on the ship.
‘They cooked and cleaned, mainly employing white officers. It played an important role in the overall functioning of the ship. They are the ones who ran the galleys and made sure everyone was fed.”
“It was the only role, at least initially at the beginning of World War II, that black men could fill … in the Navy,” he added.
Delmont said finding Walker’s remains is an important reminder that there are still dozens of Black cafeteria workers who have died and remain unidentified, and so many more families who still don’t have answers.
Through anthropological, dental and mitochondrial DNA analysis, forensic scientists from the DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System were able to identify Walker’s remains in November 2023.
“They were mourned by their communities, the same way white Americans mourned those lost at Pearl Harbor,” he told the Washington Post. “But I think it’s also a window into the segregation and discrimination that those black Americans faced in the service of their country.”
“David Walker and most black men… from the southern states went to segregated high schools,” he added. “They were in segregated communities. And then they ended up in a segregated army, where they had to deal with racism and discrimination almost every day of their lives.”
The Navy remained racially segregated into training and service units until 1942, when rates were opened to all qualified persons. U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command website page.
According to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 2,403 American service members were killed, including 68 civilians Census Bureau. Nineteen U.S. Navy ships, including eight battleships, were destroyed or damaged during the attack.