KENTUCKY — A Kentucky sailor killed at Pearl Harbor has been identified almost 80 years after he died, the military announced.

Navy Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class Alphard S. Owsley, 23, of Paris, Kentucky, was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Japanese aircraft attacked his ship, the USS Oklahoma. Owsley was among 249 crewmen who died on the ship. 

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Wednesday that Owsley was accounted for on Sept. 14.

“We are saddened to learn of yet another young Kentuckian who died in the Pearl Harbor attack,” said Gov. Andy Beshear Friday. “But we are gratified that modern science and military determination has, against all odds, found him and will bring him home.”

In the wake of World War II, the Central Identification Laboratory confirmed the identities of 35 men from the USS Oklahoma. Unidentified remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. They were then exhumed in 2015 for analysis. Scientists used DNA to identify Owsley's remains.

Owsley's name is alongside others missing from World War II on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl. A rosette will be placed next to his name to show he has since been accounted for.

Owsley will be buried in his hometown Aug. 5, 2021.