VENTURA, Calif. (AP) – The remains of a man killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified as a Navy sailor from Southern California.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Claude Ralph Garcia was 25 years old on December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces bombed the military installation in Hawaii, the Ventura County Star reported on Sunday.
News reports at the time described Garcia as the first Ventura resident to die in World War II, The Star said.
Garcia had been one of more than 72,000 service members missing since the war. The Army’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has been using new DNA technology to identify them.
Garcia was a member of the Ventura High School graduating class of 1933 who attended community college before joining the Navy, according to the Star.
He was assigned to the USS West Virginia, one of 21 ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor. Garcia’s remains had been interred in a grave at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.