England's remains were recovered in 1949. He and four others were buried together as unidentified at the
Punchbowl Cemetery, more formally called the
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. A total of 429 crewmen were killed aboard the USS
Oklahoma. From December 1941 through June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of those who perished, interring them in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries in Hawaii. In September 1947, the remains were disinterred by the American Graves Registration Service, and transferred to the Central Identification Laboratory at
Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Only 35 of the 429 sailors and
Marines who died on
Oklahoma were identified in the years following the attack. The remains of 388 unidentified sailors and Marines were first interred as unknowns in the
Nu'uanu and Halawa cemeteries, but were all disinterred in 1947, in an unsuccessful attempt to identify more personnel. In 1950, all unidentified remains from
Oklahoma were buried as Unknowns in 61 caskets in 46 graves at the
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In 2003, a Pearl Harbor survivor, Ray Emory, conducted inquiries which resulted in the exhumation of a single casket associated with the
Oklahoma loss.
DNA evidence and
anthropological research revealed that remains are "extremely commingled" at least 95 individuals were within the first disinterred casket based on
mitochondrial DNA results. According to the National Park Service, "in 2015, as part of the USS Oklahoma Project, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, through a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs, exhumed all of the unknown remains from the USS Oklahoma. Through December 2017, DPAA made their 100th identification from the ship's casualties. The process began in June 2015, when four graves, two individual and two group graves, were disinterred. In December 2017, 100 had been identified; at the end of fiscal year 2018, 181
Oklahoma unknowns had been identified by the
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. On February 26, 2019, the 200th unknown was identified. On December 6, 2019, the US Department of Defense announced that 236 remains had been identified from
Oklahoma and that 152 had yet to be identified. As of Fiscal year 2020, 267 missing crew have been accounted for. In 2016, the United States Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency resolved to identify the Oklahoma crew using
DNA testing. England's remains were found within the grave of unknown soldiers at the National Cemetery of the Pacific. The Department of Defense used
mitochondrial DNA to make the identification. Upon identification, he was reburied with full
military honors next to his parents, Sam and Thelma England, in the Evergreen Cemetery in
Colorado Springs. His niece attended the funeral, which included a large procession. There was an "impressive
motorcade and the services" were covered by the
Discovery Channel and
National Geographic Channel, who were creating
film footage in 2016 for the 75th anniversary coverage of the Pearl Harbor attack. ==Namesakes and honors==