INDIANAPOLIS– Navy Fireman 3rd Class Willard Irvin Lawson will reach his final resting place this Saturday, April 27, more than 70 years after his death, when his remains are buried at Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Madison.

In the summer of 2015, the remains of men from the USS Oklahoma, killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, were exhumed and analyzed using mitochondrial DNA. One of the men identified was Mr. Lawson, whose name has been etched on the Walls of the Missing in Hawai’i, along with over 18,000 other names.

Over the 18 months following the attack, the remains of the 429 Armed Forces personnel who perished on the USS Oklahoma were gathered and buried in multiple cemeteries in Hawai’i, as they were unable to be identified at that time. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the remains of 200 USS Oklahoma crewmen have been identified since the exhumations have begun.

Family members of Mr. Lawson, who reside in nearby Milton, Kentucky, and Middletown, Ohio, will now be able to visit the grave of the man they had only heard stories about from relatives. The Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery is honored to have the remains of Navy Fireman 3rd Class Willard Irvin Lawson (pictured below) interred on their grounds in Saturday’s ceremony, which is open to the public.

Cemetery: Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery
Address: 1415 North Gate Rd, Madison, Indiana 47250
Date: Saturday, April 27, 2019
Time: 1 PM