The remains of Willard Orr, who went missing in action in World War II, have been identified and will be buried in Bangor this week.
Orr, a 1939 Bangor High School graduate, enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in December 1940. He was a head cook at Hickam Field in Hawaii, and was presumed killed in the Pearl Harbor attacks.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which recovers and identifies missing U.S. service members, identified his remains in November 2025.
His remains will be buried Saturday at Maple Grove Cemetery in a service coordinated by Brookings-Smith Funeral Home in Bangor.
When Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, nearby military installations including Hickam Field were also targeted. During a 4-hour attack, 91 soldiers died at Hickam Field, and their bodies were buried in the Schofield Barracks Cemetery. In 1947, all but 12 of their identities were confirmed. The unidentified remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the unidentified remains in 2019. In November 2025, a laboratory analysis and circumstantial evidence confirmed the identity of one of the unknowns as Orr.
Orr is the namesake of the Willard C. Orr Pedestrian Bridge in Bangor, originally constructed around 1980 and rededicated in 2021. The bridge spans the Kenduskeag Stream between Pickering Square and Exchange Street.
He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii.