Remains of Grayslake sailor killed in Pearl Harbor attack identified
Seventy-eight years after his death, the remains of a sailor from Grayslake who was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified, a Defense Department agency announced Monday.
DNA, dental records and other analysis were used to confirm the remains were those of Navy Fireman Third Class Herbert B. Jacobson, according to the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
The 21-year-old Jacobson was aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma when it and much of the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet were attacked by Japanese forces on Dec. 7, 1941.
The Oklahoma capsized after sustaining multiple torpedo hits. Of the 2,402 Americans killed in the attack, 429 were on the Oklahoma.
The remains of the deceased Oklahoma sailors entombed in the ship were recovered by the Navy over the next three years, compartment by compartment, and interred in cemeteries in Hawaii. Many of the remains were commingled because so little was left of the bodies.
Jacobson's remains were among the ones recovered - but they weren't identified until now.
His nephew, Brad McDonald of North Carolina, called the announcement "wonderful."
"It's great that they found him," said McDonald, whose late mother, Norma, was Jacobson's sister.
Jacobson, known as "Bert" to many friends in Grayslake and the Navy, trained at what is now the Great Lakes Naval Station before being assigned to duty in Michigan and then the Pacific Ocean theater.
Jacobson and McDonald's father, Orville, met at Great Lakes and became friends. McDonald's parents actually met during a trip from the Navy base to Grayslake.
"If it wasn't for Bert, I wouldn't be here," McDonald said.
The work to identify Jacobson and the other lost Oklahoma crew members began in 1947, when the U.S. Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from Pearl Harbor and transferred them to an Army laboratory in Hawaii.
The staff was able to confirm the identities of 35 men from the Oklahoma at the time. The other remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu and classified as nonrecoverable.
They included Jacobson's remains.
In 2015, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the remains of those unidentified Oklahoma crew members for additional analysis.
McDonald and other relatives donated DNA samples for the investigation.
Jacobson's remains were identified in late 2019, according to the agency.
"I'm overwhelmed ... that they made such an effort," McDonald said.
Jacobson will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Jacobson's name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, along with other military personnel listed as missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate his remains have been identified.