Sailor killed in Pearl Harbor attack accounted for 8 decades later: “We’ve loved him forever, without ever knowing him”

The remains of another sailor aboard the doomed USS California have been identified more than eight decades after the battleship was sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. officials confirmed on Friday.

U.S. Navy Seaman 1st Class Clyde C. McMeans, 26, was officially accounted for on Nov. 25, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release.

On Dec. 7, 1941, McMeans was assigned to the USS California, which was moored at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor. Japanese warplanes attacked, torpedoed and bombed the ship, which caught fire before flooding and slowly sinking. McMeans, 26, was one of 103 crewmen who died. 

According to Pacific Historic Parks, McMeans was in a motorboat helping other sailors get to shore when that boat was struck by a bomb. He was reported missing and later declared dead.

Navy personnel worked until April 1942 to recover remains of the crew, which were interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries in Hawaii. In addition to the 42 casualties from the USS California initially identified after the attack, dozens of other crewmen from the ship have since been identified using forensic testing.

Efforts to identify the remaining crew of the USS California have been ongoing.

The DPAA did not provide McMeans’ hometown but his family told KRIS-TV in Corpus Christi that he grew up in South Texas and had a brother, Edward McMeans, a medic who survived World War II. On Tuesday, the Navy told Clyde McMeans’ family that his remains were identified through DNA and forensic analysis, the station reported.

“We’ve loved him forever, without ever knowing him,” Kathy Herrmann, McMeans’ niece, told the station.

Family members say McMeans’ funeral service will be held on May 1 and he will be buried at Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery in Corpus Christi with military honors.

In October, U.S. military officials announced another crew member on the USS California,  U.S. Navy Fireman 1st Class Edward D. Bowden, had also been accounted for.

Earlier this month, the DPAA said it plans to exhume the remains of 88 unidentified sailors and Marines who were killed when the USS Arizona was attacked at Pearl Harbor. The Arizona sank just nine minutes after being bombed, and its 1,177 dead account for nearly half the servicemen killed in the attack.