An American flag flies at half-staff in front of Springfield District Court in Springfield, Mass., on Dec. 19, 2023. A Holyoke, Mass., sailor who served on the USS California at Pearl Harbor will be buried Jan. 27, 2024, with flags across the state ordered to be raised to half-staff, Gov. Maura Healey announced. (Nicole Simmons, masslive.com/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — A Holyoke, Mass., sailor who served on the USS California at Pearl Harbor will be buried Saturday, with flags across the state ordered to be raised to half-staff, Gov. Maura Healey announced.
Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class Hillman, a Holyoker assigned to the battleship USS California, was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. His remains were recovered but unidentifiable with the technology of the day. He was one of 25 unknowns from the California interred with his shipmates at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Visitation will be held at the Barry J. Farrell Funeral Home in Holyoke from 9 to 10 a.m., his obituary read. A prayer service will follow, then the procession to Saint Jerome Cemetery. Hillman will be buried there with his brother Donald F. Hillman at 11 a.m.
The military was working to identify the remains of the 25 unknowns, matching bones with the names of service members who died.
“Then we kind of forgot about it,” Hillman’s neice Cheryl Hillman Quinn told The Republican.
Pharmacists Mate 2nd Class Merle Hillman, a native of Holyoke, Mass., died aboard the USS California during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. (U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command)
But in 2018, the military disinterred those remains and began identifying them. The military was working to match the names of the long-dead but still remembered sailors, marines and soldiers to those skeletons. But on Nov. 1, 2023, a match was confirmed to be Hillman.
Then — of all days, Dec. 7 — the Navy met with Quinn and her son, Brendan, in the family home, the same Oak Street house where Hillman lived before he enlisted in 1937. The Navy filled in some gaps in Hillman’s story, bringing his medical records from his time in the service, along with photos of the remains.
Remains are identified using a combination of techniques, according to Laurel Freas, a forensic anthropologist and project lead with the Pearl Harbor Ships Project.
Techniques include forensic anthropology, dental analysis, personal effects and DNA analyses of bone samples, the Navy said. DNA is compared to the service members’ medical records and DNA reference samples from USS California families. Only five identifications from those onboard the California have been identified since the attack.
The crew abandons the damaged USS California on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. (U.S. Navy)
The California, flagship of the Battle Force, filled with water over the following three days and eventually sank. There were 104 men killed and 61 wounded. Four California sailors were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for displays of heroism during the attack.
Crews were able to refloat the California in March 1942. Repair and modernization work lasted until January 1944, more than two years after she was sunk.
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