Monroe is getting ready to welcome home one of its own at the end of May.
KSL reports that Elliott Deen Larsen, a member of the Navy Band, was killed along with 428 other sailors aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The unidentified remains of the sailors had been interred in a cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii. Larsen’s family held a funeral in the spring of 1942 and placed a headstone in the Monroe Cemetery. Using DNA samples taken in 2011, the military continued ongoing effort of matching the men’s remains to their relatives, in order to return them to their families.
Three Navy officers delivered the news of a DNA match to Larsen’s niece, Lisa King, in Feburary.
Larsen’s remains will be laid to rest with full military honors in the Monroe Cemetery on May 26.