USS Arizona "Operation 85" is a civilian lead initiative aimed at identifying 85 or more unknown American servicemen from the battleship USS Arizona which were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, who are interred in commingled graves and marked as "unknown" at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or Punchbowl Cemetery, located 10 miles (16 km) away from the location of the wreck of USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Background on the USS Arizona Unknowns On December 7, 1941, the USS Arizona suffered a catastrophic attack at Pearl Harbor, resulting in the loss of 1,177 crew members. The large majority of these servicemen were either considered "cremated by the explosion in the forward magazine of the battleship and the resulting fire" or trapped within the ship itself and are unrecoverable. However, a large number of suspected USS Arizona crew remains were recovered, but were unable to be identified after the attack and were then subsequently buried at either Halawa or Nuuanu cemeteries in Oahu, Hawaii.
In September 1947, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) undertook the task of excavating approximately 170 unidentified bodies from the Halawa and Nuuanu cemeteries, thought to be linked with the Arizona. These remains were then transported to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks on Oahu for analysis. The team at the laboratory worked to ascertain the identities of the unidentified remains with the best methods they had available to them at the time. The effort led to the successful identification of over 100 sailors from the Arizona. However, many remains were also deemed unidentifiable as DNA technology to identify them was non-existent at the time. Those remains, presumed to be from the Arizona, were then reinterred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in 76 different graves and marked as "unknown." Many surviving family members from the missing crew claim they were never made aware that remains from the Arizona crew were removed and separated from the ship. Most believed those killed were beneath the USS Arizona Memorial.
Failed attempt to resolve USS Arizona Unknowns by DPAA In February 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), the US agency tasked with recovering and identifying missing US service members, had suggested the unprecedented step of disinterring the USS Arizona unknown crew buried at the Punchbowl and re-interring them back in the sunken battleship in Pearl Harbor without any attempt to identify the remains. DPAA Director Kelly McKeague stated in a February 20, 2021 DPAA Family Update Meeting, "We have had preliminary discussions with the Navy, and one of the proposals that we have notionally talked about is to disinter all of them — not for the purpose of identification — but to entomb them in the hull of the Arizona along with their shipmates." Surviving family members became upset at the proposal to not identify the unknown service members first. Also, without proper identification, there is no assurance the remains within the unknown USS Arizona graves at the Punchbowl are actually all Arizona crew members. After much public pushback, the DPAA, along with the Assistant Secretary of Defense backpedaled on the issue and reversed their proposal. Stating they "would not be disinterring any of the remains to re-inter within the ship hull without identifying them."
Feasibility and cost associated with identifying the USS Arizona remains In March 2022, a study was released to the United States Congress which was conducted by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Manpower and Reserve Affairs which stated the cost to locate the surviving family members of the USS Arizona would run the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps $2.7 million, consume 12,600 man hours, and take 10 years to complete. Due to the feasibility study, DPAA Director Kelly McKeague has been firmly against resolving the unknowns from the Arizona through DNA identification, claiming the project was not equitable, and would consume all of their budget and resources for 10 years. The DPAA currently refuses to even acknowledge the USS Arizona unknowns within their own "Pearl Harbor Project" meant to bring attention to families in an effort to provide DNA for all missing from the December 7 attack.
Family member funds and launches "Operation 85" to locate USS Arizona family members
"Operation 85" (OP85) officially began on April 6, 2023, led and organized by Kevin Kline, the grandnephew of GM2c Robert Edwin Kline, a USS Arizona casualty and US Navy sailor killed on December 7, 1941, and who is still considered one of the 1,072 missing. Operation 85 has taken on the monumental task of locating the surviving family members of the missing crew of the Arizona and soliciting a DNA Family Reference Sample from each family member to the US Navy and the US Marine Corps Casualty offices for possible identification of the USS Arizona unknowns. Kline, a real estate agent from Northern Virginia, put his local business on hold, spearheading and personally funding the entire cost of the project so far, claiming to have spent over $50,000 of his own money, along with devoting time and other resources to it. Kline and Operation 85 have refused to accept any outside donations for the project to ensure the focus was strictly on the mission and not on fundraising. A handful of volunteers with professional genealogy experience and similar project backgrounds have joined Kline and Operation 85 to ensure the organization is properly vetting and documenting the family members as well as ensuring all genealogy standard protocols, documentation and attestations are followed that are commonly accepted by the DPAA for these types of projects.
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