Maryland soldier killed at Pearl Harbor identified decades later, welcomed home
The remains of a Maryland military service member who went unidentified for decades after he was killed at Pearl Harbor during World War II were welcomed home Thursday at Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport.
The remains of U.S. Army Pfc. Owen Norris, of Marriottsville, Maryland, were formally identified on July 7, 2026.
Norris will be buried Saturday at West Liberty United Methodist Church Cemetery in Marriottsville.
Norris was 26 years old when he was killed along with more than 100 other service members in an explosion and subsequent fires during the West Loch Disaster at Pearl Harbor on May 21, 1944.
He was assigned to the 29th Chemical Decontamination Company, which was partially stationed at Pearl Harbor's West Loch in Hawaii to support upcoming naval operations in the Pacific.
Norris was killed when a series of explosions destroyed six LSTs, or landing ship tanks. Despite an immediate search for survivors, Norris was not found, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Soon after the incident, the War Department issued a Report of Death listing Norris as "killed in an explosion." The disaster resulted in the deaths of 132 service members.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the American Graves Registration Service exhumed all of the West Loch casualties in August and September 1947 in an effort to identify those who had not been accounted for.
Nearly 50 unidentified remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.
After officials disinterred one of the West Loch unidentified remains and successfully extracted DNA, the remaining unidentified remains were approved for disinterment.
To identify Norris's remains, DPAA scientists used dental, anthropological and stable isotope analysis, along with circumstantial evidence.
Scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA analysis and nuclear single nucleotide polymorphism analysis.
Norris's name is recorded on the American Battle Monuments Commission's Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with other service members who remain missing from World War II.
