SAN DIEGO — The request, passed down through the generations, came from a grieving father whose son was missing and presumed dead after the attack at Pearl Harbor.
“If they ever find the body,” he said, “please make sure somebody steps up and takes care of things.”
This story is for subscribers
We offer subscribers exclusive access to our best journalism.
Thank you for your support.
Eighty years later, the promise is being kept. Paul Gebser is coming home.
ADVERTISEMENT
He’s coming home to San Diego and a burial Friday at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery. There will be full military honors for the 38-year-old Navy sailor, who was stationed on the battleship Oklahoma during the Dec. 7, 1941, aerial assault by Japan that shoved the United States into World War II.
Gebser’s journey to a final resting place is the result of a painstaking Department of Defense project, concluded late last year, that used forensic anthropology, medical and dental records, and DNA testing to comb through some 13,000 bones commingled in mass graves and match the remains with names.
