On November 27, 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Mess Attendant Third Class David Walker, missing from World War II.

Mess Attendant Walker entered the U.S. Navy from Virginia and served aboard the Tennessee-class battleship USS California (BB-44). On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-based aircraft launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base and ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In the early minutes of the attack, the California was hit by two torpedoes, which pierced the ship's port side, and a bomb, which struck the ship's upper deck. The ship sustained significant damage, and over one hundred sailor and Marine lives were lost in the attack. While counter-flooding efforts kept the California upright, the ship slowly sank over the next three days. Several months later, in late March and early April, the California was raised and floated to dry dock for repair. Remains were removed from the ship in the weeks following the attack and during Navy salvage operations in early 1942. Although some were identified, many were later buried as Unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2018, the DPAA began to exhume unknown remains associated with the California and reexamine them using advances in forensic technology. Laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established one set of these remains as those of MATT3 Walker.

Mess Attendant Third Class Walker is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.