DNA on letters helps ID Pearl Harbor victim
Before he died at Pearl Harbor less than a month after turning 18, Gerald Lehman sent letters home to his mother in Michigan — letters that she treasured and saved.
Unknowingly, Lehman was also sending home something that wouldn't be useful until decades later — his own DNA.
DNA lifted from the envelopes he licked has helped the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command positively identify Lehman's remains more than 68 years after he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941.
Lehman had been buried as an "unknown" here at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His remains will receive a military escort from Hawaii to Michigan in June, according to his niece, Peggy Germain....
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Unknowingly, Lehman was also sending home something that wouldn't be useful until decades later — his own DNA.
DNA lifted from the envelopes he licked has helped the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command positively identify Lehman's remains more than 68 years after he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941.
Lehman had been buried as an "unknown" here at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His remains will receive a military escort from Hawaii to Michigan in June, according to his niece, Peggy Germain....