The Defense Department has announced the decision to disinter and identify the almost 400 sailors and Marines who perished aboard the USS Oklahoma following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

On Tuesday, the Defense Department released a statement announcing its plan to identify the 388 sailors and Marines who died aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma when it was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941 during Japan's attack on the U.S. military installations in Pearl Harbor.

The remains, currently resting at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, will be removed and sent to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) laboratory where they will be matched with DNA samples from surviving family members as well as medical and dental records from the time.

"The secretary of defense and I will work tirelessly to ensure your loved one's remains will be recovered, identified, and returned to you as expeditiously as possible, and we will do so with dignity, respect and care," said Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work. "While not all families will receive an individual identification, we will strive to provide resolution to as many families as possible."

Deputy Secretary Work established a broader new Defense Department policy defining the criteria for disinterment of unknowns.

Because many of the remains buried from Oklahoma wreckage are commingled, the Defense Department has to estimate its ability to identify at least 60 percent of the individuals in a group and at least 50 percent for individual unknowns.

The Pentagon hopes that with the advances in technology in recent years, especially DNA analysis, it will be possible to identify the remains, said DPAA spokesperson Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, reports the Associated Press. They plan to start work in around three to six weeks and will continue for the next five years.

One family is happy about the Pentagon's decision. Tom Gray's cousin, Edwin Hopkins, died at the age of 19 aboard Oklahoma and his body was never identified, he told the AP. Now, he hopes his cousin's remains will join his aunt and uncle in New Hampshire, where Hopkins was born and raised.

Oklahoma sunk that infamous day after being struck by nine Japanese torpedoes. Some 429 men died aboard and only 35 were identified in the years following the attack. The rest were buried in 1950 at the National Cemetery of the Pacific.

"I also think that a boy gives up his life at 19 years old and ends up in a co-mingled grave marked as 'unknown' isn't proper," Gray said. "I never did."