Braymer, Mo. ? Sixty-two years to the day after he and more than 2,200 Americans died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the remains of a sailor from Missouri were laid to rest Sunday in his hometown.

Payton L. Vanderpool Jr. was 22 and serving aboard the USS Pennsylvania when he died. Because of confusion after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that brought the United States into World War II, Vanderpool’s identity was lost, and the location of his remains was unknown for decades.

In recent years one of his sisters, Thelma Blanton of Kansas City, Kan., began writing letters urging the government to speed efforts to find and identify her brother’s remains.

In September, recently disinterred remains were positively identified as Vanderpool’s by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. It was only the second time that an unknown Pearl Harbor victim was found and identified.

At Sunday’s service in the Pitts Funeral Home in Braymer, Vanderpool’s casket was flanked by his Navy whites, hanging on a wall, and a small table of portraits and memorabilia. The items included a tin toy, a jar of marbles and a letter Vanderpool wrote to his parents three months before his death.

“You must be getting plenty of rain now, and I hope you have a good crop,” he wrote. “80 cents a bushel is pretty high for corn, isn’t it?”

Blanton was joined at the service by two of Vanderpool’s other sisters, Flora Mae Young, also of Kansas City, Kan., and Vera Denny of St. Joseph. A fourth sister, Madolene Stanley of Braymer, was unable to attend.