Remains identified of Nebraska twins killed at Pearl Harbor

Associated Press
Thursday, June 27, 2019 1:41 p.m. | Thursday, June 27, 2019 1:41 p.m.

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In 2015, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency personnel began exhuming the remains and using new DNA technology to identify those lost. Here, a Navy honor guard carries a casket containing the remains of remains of Navy Machinist’s Mate 1st Class George Hanson, which were identified last December, off a jetliner to a waiting hearse at Denver International Airport late Wednesday, June 26, 2019, in Denver. Hanson died during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

LINCOLN, Neb. — Authorities say the remains of twin brothers killed in the Pearl Harbor attack have been identified and will be returned to Nebraska.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Thursday in a news release that the remains of Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Leo Blitz and Fireman 1st Class Rudolph Blitz were identified last month.

Both were 20 and were assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma when the ship and others were attacked by Japanese planes on Dec. 7, 1941. The attack on the ship resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen, including the Blitzes.

Their remains were among the unidentified remains buried in 46 plots at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. In 2015, agency personnel began exhuming the remains and using new DNA technology to identify those lost.

The agency says the twins’ remains will be interred in Lincoln on Aug. 10.