Photos: After more than 76 years, WWII veteran laid to rest in Minnesota
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Radioman 2nd Class Quentin Gifford of Mankato, Minn., was laid to rest with full military honors at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis on Saturday — more than 76 years after he was killed in action at Pearl Harbor.
Gifford was serving on the USS Oklahoma and was 22 at the time of the attack. His remains were unidentified for more than seven decades, buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
In 2015, at the direction of the deputy secretary of defense, a renewed effort was launched to identify remains associated with the USS Oklahoma. Scientists using DNA analysis, circumstantial evidence and dental comparisons were able to identify Gifford's remains.
With two surviving siblings — Harold Gifford of Woodbury and June Shoen of Warroad, Minn. — and other family members on hand, along with military officials and other dignitaries, a funeral service was conducted at Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel, followed by burial at the cemetery.
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"We never expected this to happen, because for 76 years he has been considered having been killed in action," Harold Gifford told KARE 11.
"We put that on his tombstone, 'finally home,'" Shoen told KARE.
The Navy Operational Support Center, which provided military funeral honors, reported that Quentin Gifford is the fourth recently identified USS Oklahoma sailor from Minnesota to return home; a fifth is expected later this year.
"I am honored and humbled to participate in this event," Rear Admiral Linnea Sommer-Weddington, deputy director of computer systems and information technology for U.S. Strategic Command, said in a news release. Sommer-Weddington presented flags to Quentin Gifford's siblings.
