Remains of U.S. sailor killed with 100 crewmates in Pearl Harbor attack identified

A Navy fireman who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor has been identified 84 years later, military officials said Tuesday. 

U.S. Navy Fireman 1st Class Edward D. Bowden enlisted in the military in 1939, according to a newspaper clipping shared by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. He was from New Bern, North Carolina. 

Bowden was on the USS California when the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941, the DPAA said in a news release. The ship was torpedoed and bombed, and caught fire before flooding and slowly sinking. Bowden, 29, was one of more than 100 men who died aboard the vessel. 

Navy personnel worked until April 1942 to recover remains of the deceased crew, which were interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries in Hawaii. Only 44 of the sets of remains were identified at the time, the DPAA said. 

In 1947, the unknown remains were disinterred and transported to a laboratory on Oahu. Another 39 men were identified, but 20 sailors from the vessel remained unidentified after these efforts, the DPAA said. The unidentified men were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Their names were recorded on the cemetery’s Walls of the Missing. 

Bowden’s family was notified of his death, according to local newspaper clippings from February 1942 shared by the DPAA. He was survived by a brother and sister, according to the clippings. In April 1949, a military board classified his remains as non-recoverable. 

In 2018, the DPAA exhumed the remaining unknown remains from the USS California. The remains underwent dental and anthropological analysis, as well as DNA analysis and genome sequencing. Circumstantial evidence was also used to identify the remains. Bowden was identified. The DPAA said he was accounted for on April 1, 2025. 

Bowden’s surviving family members were informed of his identification, and a rosette will be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing to indicate that he has been accounted for, the DPAA said. Bowden will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery later in October.  

Of the 20 unidentified sailors who the DPAA disinterred in 2018, 11 have been accounted for, the agency said. Efforts to identify the remaining nine sailors are ongoing, the DPAA said.