A flag-draped casket containing the remains of an unidentified USS Oklahoma sailor killed at Pearl Harbor is transported to a Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, bus after being exhumed. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

A single grave marker is used for five unidentified sailors killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Amateur historian and Pearl Harbor attack survivor Ray Emory urged the researching of the remains. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Everett Hyland paid his respects to a fallen crewmate. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Both men were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific when it opened in 1949. Their grave markers noted date and place of death but also bore the haunting inscription "unknown."

The Army's Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, researched the cases at the urging of amateur historian and Pearl Harbor attack survivor Ray Emory.

Emory, who also researched the cases, believes the sailors are Fireman 2nd Class Payton L. Vanderpool Jr., who was assigned to the battleship USS Pennsylvania, and Ensign Eldon P. Wyman, who had been on the battleship USS Oklahoma.

The 82-year-old Emory was responsible for the initial historical research that led to the Army lab's identification in 2001 of another Pearl Harbor casualty ­ Thomas Hembree.

Johnie Webb Jr., deputy director of the lab, stood by today as cemetery workers carefully and reverently dug out the last few feet of dirt with shovels in one of the graves.

"Even though they are unknowns, they are on hallowed ground," he said.

Webb said the success of the Hembree identification, the very first of a Pearl Harbor unknown, was a factor in the decision to disinter the graves today.

"We saw what it meant to the Hembree family," he said. "Even after all these years, to them it was still very fresh."

Webb today would not discuss who he thinks were in the graves, but in the past has said Grave Q-179 ­ which was opened today ­ may contain Vanderpool.

"We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't feel there was sufficient evidence to allow us to identify them," Webb said. "We go in with significant optimism."

A lot of work will go into identifying the remains but the work could be finished by Dec. 7 ­ 62 years after the attack.

Emory, a long-time champion of the unknowns buried at Punchbowl, said he used military burial records and personnel files to reach his conclusions.

Emory turned over his dental records for Vanderpool early last year and sent another file on the Wyman case a few months ago.

He said the Wyman records show that the sailor was identified in 1949 by the American Graves Registration Service but later rejected because a form had not been signed by a forensic pathologist. Instead of getting the form, the service buried him as an unknown.

Everett Hyland, an 80-year-old former crewman on the Pennsylvania and attack survivor, drove to Punchbowl today out of respect for Vanderpool, a man he served with but never met.

"He was on the same ship," Hyland said. "It's important to me."

Emory, a man of few words, took it all in today. He wouldn't take credit for what he had done, noting instead that he has more cases in the works.

But he knew why Hyland was there, why he was there, too. The Pearl Harbor survivors, aging and their numbers dwindling, still have a bond.

Emory pointed to Hyland and the open graves.

"That's part of his family over there," he said.