PEARL HARBOR — Shyly, Wesley Stidham approached each of the elderly gentlemen to ask for an autograph.

There was Sterling Cale, who as a young Navy corpsman used an ax to break into a Pearl Harbor arms room on Dec. 7, 1941, to get weapons to fight off the Japanese attack.

There was George Brown, a sailor who survived the assault on the USS Oklahoma, swimming through oil-polluted, debris-strewn waters to safety.

There was Tom Unger, a teenager living not far from Pearl Harbor who rushed to the hideous scene, volunteered with the Red Cross and soon found himself removing the dead.

"He's trying to collect as many signatures as he can," said Pam Stidham, mother of 11-year-old Wesley. "We all know it's not going to be long until these men are no longer around to tell their stories to admiring kids like him."

Every year more than 1 million people like the Stidhams, from Kingsport, Tenn., visit the USS Arizona Memorial. On Memorial Day, its history came alive as nine survivors of that day's attack gathered on the shores of the famous harbor to tell their incredible stories.

On a day devoted to remembering troops who died in service to their nation, Ray Emory, 86, stole the show with his dedication to that goal. From memory, he listed every ship that was in Pearl Harbor 65 years ago, more than 100 in addition to the well-known USS Arizona. Breathless at the end of his list, Emory smiled weakly as some in the audience stood to applaud.

"When it comes to remembering the dead who served for this country, a lot of people approach it like church," Emory said. "They're good for a day, but the minute they walk away, they forget why they were there in the first place."

Emory has done anything but forget. The Peoria, Ill., native rarely tells his own story from that day, how he rushed to the guns on the USS Honolulu, firing at the attacking Japanese amid their rain of bullets. Instead, he tells of what he has been doing for the past 15 years, his exhaustive crusade to identify the hundreds of Pearl Harbor casualties who were buried as "Unknown" in the chaotic aftermath of the attack.

"It matters who these men are," he said yesterday.

Emory's quest began shortly before the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. He went to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, with plans to put flags on the graves of all Pearl Harbor casualties buried there.

But he was horrified to find those graves simply had stones that said "Unknown, Dec. 7, 1941."

Emory, who became a successful architect after getting out of the Navy, began collecting records from each ship moored in Pearl Harbor that day, tracking down where their dead had been buried. Thanks to his work, the cemetery stones have been updated to reflect how many men are buried in each gravesite and with which ship or base they were serving when they died. Even more, Emory, who retired in Hawai'i, has been successful in getting four bodies exhumed and identified. A fifth has been identified, he said, and it will be announced that those remains are being returned to the family on the Mainland next week.

"They deserve a name on their grave," Emory said.

All morning, visitors to the USS Arizona approached Emory and the other survivors. Showing how decades can heal wounds, survivor Bill Cope was at one point surrounded by members of a Japanese tour group who bowed reverently and took their picture with him. People wept openly as they shook the old men's hands.

Cale, one of the survivors, told a group of visitors that he comes to Pearl Harbor for special events such as Memorial Day and the anniversary of the attack. But he comes the rest of the year, too.

"Once a week I go out to pay my respects. It's not something only for Memorial Day."