A sailor who died in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor will be interred Thursday in Arlington National Cemetery, and family from Colorado will witness the long-awaited ceremony.
Fireman 1st Class Elmer Nail, who served on the USS Oklahoma, died in the line of service in the attack that led the United States into World War II.
In 1944, when the ship was righted, his remains were among 388 unidentified sailors and marines who were interred as “unknowns,” said Capt. Robert McMahon, director, Navy Casualty Office, in a news release.
Since 2015, Project Oklahoma identified the remains of 356 USS Oklahoma sailors and marines using DNA reference samples contributed by family members. Nail is among them.
“It’s been a little bit of time to work through everything,” said Michael Savage, Nail’s nephew. “Our family is just really grateful to the Navy for sticking to this. We are grateful to have that kind of commitment to the sailors who died in the line of duty.”
Nail was born on Oct. 3, 1918, in Kansas City. He grew up in a small town, Perry, Kan., where he hunted and fished to put meals on the family table. He enlisted in the Navy in 1940, in part, to secure a steady income and support his family, including a sister, Ella May — Savage’s mother.
Savage, a retired Greeley police captain who lives in Estes Park, never met Nail. His uncle died before he was born, but his mother told him stories about Nail, who had mailed her gifts and keepsakes from Hawaii prior to the attack.
Ella May Savage died in 2018, but she was aware of the developments around DNA identification and she had advocated for Nail’s burial in Arlington.
“For me, it’s about two things,” Michael Savage said. “My uncle is going to be honored for giving his life for his country. Secondly, it fulfills a promise I made to my mother about taking care of her brother.”
As a fireman, Nail was responsible for standing engineering watches and performing minor maintenance repairs on the Oklahoma. He was posthumously awarded several decorations, including the Purple Heart Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
The 639-acre Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia is the final resting place for more than 400,000 veterans.
Editor’s note: This story was edited on April 8, there are 400,000 people interred in Arlington National Cemetery, an earlier version had an incorrect number.
