Pearl Harbor Sailor Finally Returns Home After 85 Years

Royle Bradford Luker was 17 years old and wanted to come home for Christmas.

The Navy sailor from Arkansas had written to his parents asking for money for the trip, according to his niece, Becky Leinsing. His family could not afford to send it.

“I’ve always wondered and wished I had asked if that trip home would have had him out of harm’s way,” Lensing told Military.com.

Days later, Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, and Luker was killed aboard the USS West Virginia. More than 84 years later, he is coming home.

Luker, a Navy firefighter 3rd class, was officially accounted for May 29, 2024, more than 82 years after he was killed, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. His burial is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at New Bethel Cemetery in Plainview, Ark., where he will be laid to rest beside his parents.

For his family, the return marks the end of a wait that spanned generations.

“I could not believe it when I got the call that he had been identified,” Lensing said. “From what I had read about the USS West Virginia, I thought there was no hope of ID’ing him.”

The Navy notified Lensing on Feb. 3, 2025, she said, after officials had spent months trying to locate Luker’s oldest living relatives. She gave them her cousin John Luker’s phone number, and since then the two have been communicating with Navy representatives.

A Family Story Carried in Fragments

Luker was one of the young sailors aboard the West Virginia when the Japanese attack began Dec. 7, 1941.

The battleship was moored at Ford Island when it was struck by multiple torpedoes and bombs, eventually sinking to the shallow harbor floor. More than 100 crew members aboard the ship were killed in the attack.

Lensing knew her uncle mostly through family fragments. Royle was her mother’s brother. Her mother, Mary Ruth Luker Downen, was one of four children born to George Franklin Luker and Nettie David Luker: Doyle, Sarah Evelyn, Royle and Mary Ruth.

“Mom talked about Royle being a small guy when he joined the Navy. After all, he was only 17 years old,” Lensing said, adding that her grandparents did not speak about him often.

The family’s grief did not end with Pearl Harbor. Luker’s older brother Doyle survived the war, came home, married, and had a 6-week-old son before he was killed at a construction site where he worked.

“I guess they didn’t talk about it because they had such great loss,” Lensing said.

John Luker, Doyle’s son and Royle’s nephew, said few people remain who can speak to that part of the family’s history.

“There’s nobody alive today that would’ve known him,” John Luker told Military.com.

He grew up knowing his uncle had died at Pearl Harbor, but the family did not often discuss the details. One memory stayed with him: His grandmother once said Royle and Doyle both loved hunting and fishing.

Identified After Decades as an Unknown

For decades, Royle Luker’s remains were unidentified. Like many of the dead from the West Virginia, his remains were buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.

His name was also recorded on the Courts of the Missing, where names stand in for service members who had not yet been returned to their families.

The effort to identify unknowns from the USS West Virginia began in 2017, when remains associated with the ship were disinterred for renewed analysis. DPAA scientists used modern forensic tools, including DNA comparison with family reference samples, to help identify sailors who had been lost to the violence of the attack and the limits of earlier recovery efforts.

John Luker said the family first heard from DPAA by letter roughly a year ago. Since, Navy and DPAA representatives have helped the family through each step, including funeral planning and a detailed summary of Royle Luker’s service, death and identification.

“They know what they’re doing,” John Luker said. “They’re professional. They’re good at what they do. They’re very considerate, and it really kind of makes you proud.”

He said the agency’s persistence is what impressed him most.

Lensing said she does not remember seeing a photo of her uncle until the funeral home director found one at his high school and circulated it ahead of the service.

“I wish I knew more about him,” Lensing said. “I also wish my mother and all the other family members could have known he would be returned to Plainview.”

His parents bought a grave plot and headstone for him in Plainview, Lensing said, though she does not know when the plot was purchased.

Finally Coming Home

The service this weekend will begin with a procession from Cornwell Funeral Home in Dardanelle, Ark., to New Bethel Cemetery in Plainview.

Audra, a representative from the funeral home, told Military.com the procession will include Patriot Guard Riders and city officials. At the cemetery, the Navy Honor Guard and local veterans groups are expected to take part.

“All public is welcome to attend and would be greatly appreciated,” the funeral home said.

Lensing said the Navy’s role in honoring him has carried deep meaning for her family, including her three children.

“I have been communicating with Navy representatives for years, and to have it come to this end is a blessing beyond belief,” she said. “We are all planning to be there.”

The timing adds another layer for the family. The service will take place one day before Mary Ruth Luker Downen’s birthday.

When Lensing was growing up, her family traveled from Louisiana to her grandparents’ home in Arkansas every year for Decoration Day at New Bethel Cemetery. It always took place around Memorial Day.

“Mama always bought poppies to honor and support the veterans,” Lensing said. “She was as patriotic as they come.”

The return has also changed how younger family members understand Royle Luker’s story. John Luker said his grandson graduated high school last week.

“He was the same age Royle was when he was killed, 17” John Luker said.

Asked whether he could imagine his grandson going to war at that age, John Luker paused.

“No,” he said. “I can’t get my head around it.”

Luker’s identification is part of a larger, continuing effort to account for Americans killed in past wars. DPAA’s mission includes finding, recovering and identifying service members from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and other conflicts.

In Pearl Harbor cases, that work often depends on relatives who provide DNA samples decades after the original loss.

The USS West Virginia itself survived the attack, despite the devastation that killed Luker and many of his shipmates. The battleship was later raised, repaired and returned to service, supporting operations in the Pacific before the end of World War II.

But for families of those who died aboard the ship on Dec. 7, 1941, recovery has taken much longer.

For Luker’s family, the final chapter will unfold not in Hawaii, where he died, but in Arkansas, where a grave was waiting for him.

More than 84 years after he was killed, the teenage sailor from Arkansas is no longer just a name among the missing. He is finally coming home.