DNA from letters helps ID Pearl Harbor sailor - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

DNA from letters helps ID Pearl Harbor sailor

Before he died at Pearl Harbor, less than a month after turning 18, Gerald Lehman sent letters home to Michigan that his mother came to treasure.

In them, the teen talked about going through Navy training in Great Lakes, Ill. — falling out of his sleeping hammock once — and how much he liked his new woolen uniform.

In graceful penmanship, he asked about the family dog, Duke; and waiting to ship out from California on the battleship USS Oklahoma.

Unknowingly, Lehman sent home to those who loved him something else, something that wouldn’t be useful until decades later: his own DNA.

Sixty-eight years after he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941, DNA lifted from the envelopes Lehman licked helped the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command positively identify the young sailor’s remains.

Lehman had been buried as an “unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. His journey home began with research by a Pearl Harbor survivor and inquiries into the death of the Navy fireman third class by his niece, Peggy Germain.

Germain remembers getting a phone call in 2006 from the Michigan volunteer coordinator of a USS Oklahoma group saying remains tentatively identified as her uncle had been found.

It had been the “dearest wish” of her mother, who died in 2005, to get her baby brother back for burial, she said.

Germain said her uncle’s remains will receive a military escort from Hawaii to Michigan in June.

Lehman’s identification followed a circuitous path, culminating with the Hawaii-based accounting command using nuclear DNA from the letters, an approach that has been used fewer than 10 times since 2006, according to the lab.

Mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from each person’s mother, is routinely used by the lab, known as JPAC, to help make identifications of service members recovered from past wars.

Nuclear DNA is inherited from each person’s mother and father, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, more copies of mitochondrial DNA in each cell, officials said.

The nuclear DNA identification method was used because it turned out Lehman had a common sequence of mitochondrial DNA that could have been shared with other sailors on the Oklahoma.

Germain’s mother and grandparents had always been told Lehman’s body was unrecoverable after the Oklahoma was torpedoed in Pearl Harbor.

The ship rolled over at its mooring, taking 429 of its crew along as it capsized. Gerald George Lehman was one of the lost sailors.

Lehman had wanted to be a pilot. He graduated from high school at 17, but because he was too young to get into college, “he thought he’d serve his country and then things would fall into place,” Germain said.

His father, Harry, had to sign for him to enlist in the Navy, “but it was peacetime, so [my] grandpa told my grandma not to worry,” his niece said.

The family saved 64 letters mailed between the time Lehman went to Naval Station Great Lakes for training and his death on the Oklahoma.

The sailor’s parents received a letter from their son talking about Thanksgiving, but by Dec. 13, 1941 — six days after the Pearl Harbor attack — they had not learned his fate.

Germain obtained her uncle’s military “deceased personnel” file, and was surprised to discover that he was, in fact, buried at Punchbowl.

She learned much of the information as a result of efforts by Pearl Harbor survivor Ray Emory, 88, who has been investigating the “unknowns” at Punchbowl for about 20 years.

In Lehman’s case, a dental chart and a mitochondrial DNA comparison were not enough to make a positive identification, so JPAC turned to nuclear DNA, officials said. The DNA work is done by the Armed Forces DNA Laboratory in Rockville, Md.

Germain’s cousin kept letters sent by Lehman, and nuclear DNA was extracted from saliva used to seal the letters.

The Maryland lab made a mitochondrial match with Lehman’s sister, and then used nuclear DNA for a positive ID.

“Following the success of this, I have told the casualty offices of the Navy that I would love to have more envelopes from Oklahoma crew members,” said Alexander Christensen, DNA coordinator for JPAC. “The way this ID worked out, it sets a great precedent that I would love to be able to maintain.”