By: Devarrick Turner, Knoxville News Sentinel-undefined

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Department of Defense effort that began in 2015 to use science to solve one of our country’s prolonged mysteries has identified the remains of a Navy sailor from Athens, Tennessee, who died in the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor more than eight decades ago.

By matching DNA from his family, scientists were able to identify Oliver K. Burger, who was buried as one of the many unknown casualties. He will be honored later this month at the National Memorial Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Burger was among the nearly 400 USS Oklahoma service members who were unaccounted for when the battleship was torpedoed and capsized during the surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941. He was just 26 years old.

Born in Athens and living in San Pedro, California, at the time of the attack, Burger served as a water tender 1st class on the Oklahoma and was responsible for taking charge of the boiler room. The petty officer rating is now known as machinist’s mate.

Though it has been 80 years since the Pearl Harbor attack that catapulted the United States into World War II, scientists identified Burger’s remains in November 2020 through the Department of Defense’s USS Oklahoma Project.

Oliver Burger from Athens, Tennessee, was among 388 unidentified Navy sailors on the USS Oklahoma who were killed during the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. His remains were identified in 2020…