Busby was an Army nurse at Tripler General Hospital on Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japanese warplanes bombed Pearl Harbor and sent the United States into war. The raiders sank the battleship USS Arizona, trapping 1,177 crewmen aboard in an eternal tomb. Busby hates to think about the images of the hundreds of casualties who filled the hospital that day.

"I was there, and I had a job to do, and I did it, and that's it," she said yesterday from her home in Montgomery, Ala.

But she also doesn't want anyone to forget the legacy of Pearl Harbor. At her age, she says she may never get back here to tell her story to a new generation of visitors. She said she hopes sons and daughters of Pearl Harbor victims and survivors keep the memories alive.

As the World War II generation dies off, the National Park Service also is trying to make memories more personal, transforming 1,177 deaths from a number in the history books into individual stories of heroism.

Pearl Harbor survivors are dying at a rate of about 50 a month, and only about 4,000 to 5,000 are still alive, said Tom Shaw, president and CEO of the Arizona Memorial Museum Association.

So in addition to the keepsake tickets, designed by Hawai'i Pacific University graduate student Zack Anderson, the museum also has created an audio tour featuring voices of survivors. The museum also released the latest model plane, survivor Bill Cope's Boeing B-17C bomber, in its Wings of Valor collectors' series available at the museum bookstore.

"The World War II generation is fading," park historian Daniel Martinez said. "We're now talking about generations that are removed from World War II by decades. I think it's part of the evolution of the park to improve the interpretation."

For Kate Williams, 25, from Riverside, Calif., that meant picking up a ticket featuring Harry T.L. Pang and reading about the first civilian firefighter, from the Kalihi station, who died outside a hangar in a burst of machine-gun fire from a Japanese plane.

A ticket recounts the dedication of Tripler nurse Anna Busby, now 92 and living in Alabama. Arizona Memorial Museum Association

The USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center offers an audio tour of the museum. The recording features voices of some who survived the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"9/11 is kind of like our Pearl Harbor," she said yesterday. "I think my generation can kind of relate now."

For Greg Young, 32, of Fullerton, Calif., it meant listening to the sound of bombs and the voices of survivors on an audio tour.

"It just kind of gives you a firsthand view of what happened," said Young, who is of Hawaiian/Mexican heritage and looked with interest at the commemorative tickets with profiles representing a mix of ethnic backgrounds. He was captivated by the story of Torao Migita, the first Japanese-American serviceman killed in World War II.

Migita was home on leave the night before the attack. Upon hearing the radio call for servicemen to report for duty, the National Guardsman hurried to Schofield Barracks, his profile says, but he was killed by friendly fire in downtown Honolulu.

"He was on our side," Young said, struck by the irony of it. "And he was killed by accident."

The Arizona Memorial attracts about 4,200 visitors a day. The goal of the new features is not to appeal to more tourists, Martinez said, but to have visitors see history in a new way.

Herb Weatherwax, a survivor who comes to the museum two or three times a week, says telling his story is part of his mission in life. But he's not getting any younger.

"I'm 87 years old," he said. "And time is getting short. I want tourists to get firsthand information from these people who have been here."

Just like Anna Busby, Weatherwax and the others don't want the stories to be forgotten.

"I don't think it's right for this to pass into oblivion," said Edward Chun, an 81-year-old survivor. "A lot of these guys were 18, 19 years old when they died. It would be a terrible thing if they just let them disappear."