“Operation 85”
A Call For Help

Dear friends:

My name is Kevin Kline, and I am the Executive Director of the U.S.S. Arizona “Operation 85”.  I am also the great nephew of GM2c Robert Edwin Kline USN, who was killed December 7, 1941 aboard the U.S.S. Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. My uncle’s remains, along with 1071 of his fellow shipmates, were never recovered.

“Operation 85” is a mission to identify through DNA, the 85 (or more) U.S.S. Arizona crew members, both U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps members, whose graves have been commingled, marked as “unknown” and buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hi.  I am writing to you to ask for help with outreach and awareness as we try every effort we can to reach and locate other family members for this important undertaking. Help could be something as simple as just sharing this website on your social media or within a group email list.

Most people assume that all of the unrecovered crew are entombed within the U.S.S. Arizona and rest underneath the Arizona Memorial, but this is not true.  There are multiple commingled graves 10 miles away from the ship marked simply as “Unknown USS Arizona”.  Other WW2 ships recently have had very successful projects of matching DNA to the remains of family members for positive identification.  However, one of the most iconic battleships in naval history, continues to be pushed aside and overlooked.  Why?

As director of this volunteer, civilian endeavor, we are working hand in hand with the United States Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the National Park Service, the US Navy & Marine Corps Casualty Office and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s System.  However, the effort for outreach and awareness to meet the threshold for family DNA participation has fallen directly on the family members.  Our goal is to find other family members of the 1072 unrecovered  U.S.S. Arizona crew members, so they can provide a family DNA sample to the Armed Forces Medical Examiners System and ultimately help identify the unknowns.

Your assistance could help change the trajectory of this mission’s outcome, and help accelerate the removal of the word “unknown” from these past American heroes.  It’s time to bring these American service member’s home!

Again, simply sharing this website could result in another family member seeing it and coming forward to help identify another hero of the U.S.S. Arizona.

I hope you’ll continue to share our message and our success, as we work together to identify the “unknowns” of the most iconic battleship in naval history,  the U.S.S. Arizona BB-39.

Sincerely yours,