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ARLINGTON CEMETERY — U.S. Navy veteran Frank Hryniewicz was buried with full military honors Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery, more than 80 years after the Massachusetts native was killed when Japan launched its Dec. 7, 1941, attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii.
Hryniewicz, then 20, was aboard the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked “Battleship Row” with swarms of torpedo bombers. The Oklahoma was hit by several Type 91 aerial torpedoes, which split open the ship’s port side along much of its length. The battleship quickly rolled over and sank to the bottom of the harbor.
Several Oklahoma sailors trapped inside the upturned hull were later cut free through the efforts of sailors and civilian Navy Yard employees. But more than 400 of the crew were lost — including Hryniewicz.
His remains were among those recovered from the USS Oklahoma after the attack but couldn’t be individually identified at the time. Later, they were buried as “unknowns” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Frances Griffin was not yet born when Uncle Frankie — as the family called him — died at Pearl Harbor.
“This is something we’ve lived with all our lives. The finality of it is wonderful. There is a certain joy to know that he’s finally here,” Ms. Griffin said following the interment ceremony.
Frank Hryniewicz, the youngest of five children, never imagined that he would find himself in the middle of a shooting war. He had joined a peacetime Navy and was excited when he learned that his duty station would be a tropical paradise.
“He went to Hawaii to have a good time. He was a young, handsome sailor,” Ms. Griffin said.
A U.S. Navy band and honor guard, immaculate in their dress whites, escorted the family to the site at Arlington National Cemetery where the funeral service was held. The Navy personnel placed a small wooden box containing his remains on a table that had been set before the family. They unfurled an American flag and held it like a protective shroud over their fellow sailor.
Advances in forensic science prompted the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) in 2015 to initiate a reexamination of the unidentified remains from the USS Oklahoma. The agency’s “USS Oklahoma Project” has resulted in the identification of more than 360 of the 394 sailors assigned to the battleship whose remains could not be identified by earlier forensic efforts.
“The success of the Oklahoma Project has brought answers to these families and has also served as a milestone undertaking that has since helped shape and inform other successful disinterment projects within DPAA,” the agency said in a statement.
The forensic examinations began in 2003 with the disinterment of a single casket from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific that was thought to contain the remains of five individuals serving on the USS Oklahoma.
“Upon analysis by the DPAA laboratory, this casket was determined to have contained partial remains of nearly 100 individuals, revealing the breadth of research and scientific work necessary to fully account for the Oklahoma’s missing sailors and Marines,” the agency said.
The DPAA asked Ms. Griffin’s brother and her nephew for an example of their DNA to confirm the identity of the remains. They notified the family that a positive match had been made only a few days after her father's death.
“My father never knew that his little brother had been positively identified. Our family coming here was not only a tribute to Frankie but to our parents,” Ms. Griffin said.
Ms. Griffin said she was in awe of the efforts made by the DPAA and other government officials over the years to provide important closure to the family.
“It took a lot. They never gave up on him,” she said.
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