Since Japanese aircraft sank the USS Arizona during the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the battleship has remained in place under water, the watery gravesite to more than 900 sailors entombed within.

The U.S. Navy, as with other sunken ships in the harbor, considers those entombed beneath the ship’s hull to be in their final resting place.

The battleship suffered more loss of life than any American ship during the attack, its 1,177 dead comprising nearly half the 2,403 killed at Pearl Harbor.

Of the ship’s dead, 277 of its sailors and Marines are buried in Honolulu’s National Memorial of the Pacific. The identity of 86 of those men remain unknown to this day.

However, this past week the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that it “will seek exhumation of dozens

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