The remains of about 400 service members who perished in the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor when Japanese torpedoes sunk the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, will be exhumed this year and given a proper burial, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

“The secretary of defense and I will work tirelessly to ensure your loved one’s remains will be recovered, identified, and returned to you as expeditiously as possible, and we will do so with dignity, respect and care,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work said. “While not all families will receive an individual identification, we will strive to provide resolution to as many families as possible.”

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Thirty-five crew members were positively identified and buried in the years immediately after the attack, according to the Defense Department. By 1950, all unidentified remains were laid to rest as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

In 2003, five more service members were identified, with the help of historical evidence from Pearl Harbor survivor Ray Emory, 93.

Emory, a native of Peoria, Illinois, was serving as a seaman first class on the light cruiser USS Honolulu that fateful day.