World War II veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor. He made it his mission during retirement to identify Pearl Harbor dead interred as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Ray Emory enlisted in the U.S. Navy in peacetime — August 13, 1940 — and was assigned as a seaman first class to the USS Honolulu on May 30, 1941, according to naval muster rolls of the period. Less than three months later, he would find himself on the decks of the light cruiser the morning of December 7, returning fire from attacking Japanese aircraft as best he could with a 50-caliber machine gun. During the course of the war, Emory's duty leapfrogged the Pacific. He was part of seven invasions — Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Guam, Leyte Gulf, Lingayen Gulf, and Iwo Jima. He left active duty in 1946 with the rank of chief boatswain's mate, and settled in the Pacific Northwest. He earned an architecture degree from the University of Washington, and built a career in mechanical engineering and construction. He and his wife retired to Honolulu on the island of Oahu, and thence began his quest to identify definitively the remains of military members who died in combat but who were buried as unknowns. He used data and research to persuade the military to exhume and examine a number of remains of those who died following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Those successes spurred him to persuade the military to exhume the hundreds of unidentified remains of USS Oklahoma sailors and marines, and to use science and medical records to restore these men's identities and provide their loved ones the chance to reinter them according to each family's wishes. Those identifications began before Emory's own passing, and have continued afterward. According to the military, several hundred identifications have been made thus far, and announcements of identifications and reinterments continue regularly. About two months before Emory died, he moved from Honolulu to Boise to live with relatives after the passing of his wife. His pre-departure wish for one last stop at Pier Bravo 21 — the 1941 berth of the USS Honolulu — turned into an emotional sendoff. More than 500 sailors in dress whites formed a dockside honor cordon and ship-rail salute, and Emory was honored at a ceremony. Ray Emory was 97 at the time of his passing.