A North Carolina sailor who died aboard the USS West Virginia during the Pearl Harbor attacks will finally be laid to rest in his home state in April.

U.S. Navy Mess Attendant 3rd Class Neil D. Frye will be buried in Spring Hill, North Carolina, this month after his remains were identified on Sept. 27, 2024.

The remains of Vass, N.C., native U.S. Navy Mess Attendant 3rd Class Neil D. Frye were identified in Sept. 2024

He died aboard the USS West Virginia in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and was interred as an "unknown" until 2017 when scientists began work to identify sailor remains from the USS West Virginia

Frye will be buried this month in Spring Hill, N.C.

Frye, a Vass, North Carolina, native was 20-years-old when he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

The USS West Virginia came to rest on the shallow bottom of Pearl Harbor after substaining several torpedo hits during the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941. 106 crewman died. (West Virginia & Regional History Center)

He was serving aboard the battleship West Virginia when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft while moored at Fort Island, Pearl Harbor. The ship sustained multiple torpedo hits, but failed to capsize because of timely counter-flooding measures taken by the crew, according to a release.

Officials said 106 crewman died aboard the ship during the attack, including Frye.

Frye’s remains were among those recovered by Navy personnel after the battle, and later interred at Halawa Naval Cemetery on Oahu.

Officials said the remains of 42 people interred there were identified by the American Graves Registration Service after the war. People like Frye, however, whose remains could not be identified, were interred as unknowns in Honolulu at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl.

The agency disinterred 35 Unknowns from the Punchbowl in 2017, who were reportedly associated with the USS West Virginia.

In 2024, scientists with the federal agency and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System using various methods, including mitochondrial DNA analysis, were able to identify Frye’s remains.

Officials said Frye’s name, along with others still missing from WWII, is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Punchbowl. A rosette placed next to the name shows who has since been accounted for.