The remains of an Arkansas teenager who died aboard a battleship during the Pearl Harbor attack are returning home for burial nearly 85 years after his death.
The Navy will bury Fireman 3rd Class Royle Luker with full military honors on May 30 at New Bethel Cemetery in Plainview, the Arkansas town he left to enlist in June 1941, Stars and Stripes reported. Rear Adm. Michael Van Poots, deputy commander of Submarine Forces, will preside over the ceremony. (RELATED: Nearly 150 Dead From Pearl Harbor Attack Could Be On Track For Identification After Milestone Reached)
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirmed Luker’s identity on May 29, 2024, using forensic methods unavailable when he died, the agency’s records show. His remains had rested in a grave labeled “unknown” until investigators reopened the case.
Fireman 3rd Class Royle Luker was just 17 when he died aboard the battleship USS West Virginia during the 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
His remains were among those designated “non-recoverable” and buried as unknowns in what is now the National Memorial Cemetery… pic.twitter.com/NXROyNSCGf
— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) May 22, 2026
Luker received a long list of posthumous decorations, among them the Purple Heart, the Combat Action Ribbon and the World War II Victory Medal, the New York Post reported. He leaves behind two nephews, Donald Bradford Henderson and John Luker, along with a niece, Becky Downen Lensing. He will be buried beside his parents, World War I veteran George F. Luker and his mother, Nettie Estelle Luker.
The 17-year-old was one of 106 crewmen killed aboard the USS West Virginia when Japanese forces struck on Dec. 7, 1941, KARK reported. Counter-flooding by other sailors kept the ship from capsizing, letting it settle on the shallow harbor floor, and crews later repaired the vessel and put it back in service by 1944.
Rescuers heard tapping from sailors trapped inside the hull but lacked any way to reach men sitting atop live ammunition, according to Stars and Stripes. Three of them survived in a sealed storeroom until Dec. 23, leaving a calendar with 16 days marked off in red pencil.
Salvage teams recovered roughly 70 bodies, and 34 went unidentified for decades before the agency exhumed 35 caskets in 2017, according to the Navy.