World War II Casualty Identification

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has identified the remains of U.S. Navy Seaman 1st Class Clyde C. McMeans, a 26‑year‑old crewman of the battleship USS California who was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. DPAA says McMeans was officially accounted for on November 25, 2025, after DNA and forensic analysis of remains originally recovered from the ship and buried in Hawaii’s Halawa and Nu'uanu Cemeteries. According to Pacific Historic Parks, McMeans died when a motorboat he was using to ferry sailors to shore was hit by a bomb, one of 103 USS California crew members who perished as the ship burned and slowly sank. His family in South Texas was notified this week and plans a May 1 funeral with full military honors at the Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery in Corpus Christi. The report notes that dozens of USS California sailors have now been identified through similar efforts and that DPAA is separately preparing to exhume the remains of 88 unidentified USS Arizona casualties for new identification attempts, underscoring the U.S. military’s long‑running, resource‑intensive push to account for World War II dead decades later.