PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Bob Fernandez thought he would go dancing and see the world when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a 17-year-old high school student in August 1941.

Four months later, he was shaking from explosions and passing ammunition to artillery crews so his ship’s guns could return fire on Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, a naval base in Hawaii.

“When something like this happens, we don’t know what will happen,” said Fernandez, now 100 years old. “We didn’t even know we were in a war.”

Two bombing survivors – each 100 years old or older – plan to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to mark the 83rd anniversary of the attack that plunged the United States into World War II. They will join active-duty troops, veterans and members of the public in a memorial ceremony hosted by the Navy and the National Park Service.

Fernandez had originally planned to join them but had to cancel due to health reasons.

The bombing killed more than 2,300 US soldiers. Nearly half, 1,177, were sailors and Marines aboard the USS Arizona, which sank during the battle. The remains of more than 900 Arizona crew members are still buried on the submerged ship.

A minute’s silence will be held at 7:54 a.m., the same time the attack began eight decades ago. Planes in missing person formation are supposed to fly over us to break the silence.

Dozens of survivors once attended the annual memorial service, but attendance has declined as survivors get older. According to a list compiled by Kathleen Farley, president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors in the US state of California, only 16 people are still alive today. Military historian J. Michael Wenger estimates that about 87,000 military personnel were on Oahu on the day of the attack.

Many praise the Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, but Fernandez doesn’t see himself that way.

“I am not a hero. I’m just nothing more than a munitions giver,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from California, where he now lives with his nephew in Lodi.

Fernandez was working as a cook on his ship, the USS Curtiss, on the morning of December 7, 1941, and planned to go dancing at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki that evening.

He brought coffee and food to the sailors while he waited tables during breakfast. Then they heard an alarm sound. Through a porthole, Fernandez saw a plane flying past with the red ball insignia of Japanese planes.

Fernandez rushed down three decks to a magazine room where he and other sailors waited for someone to unlock a door storing 5-inch (12.7 centimeters) and .38-caliber shells so they could begin delivering them to the Pass on ship guns.

Over the years, he told interviewers that some of his fellow sailors prayed and cried when they heard gunshots above.

“I was kind of scared because I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Fernandez said.

The ship’s guns hit a Japanese aircraft, which crashed into one of its cranes. Shortly afterward, its guns hit a dive bomber, which then slammed into the ship and exploded below deck, setting fire to the hangar and main decks, according to the Navy History and Heritage Command.

Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, lost 21 men and nearly 60 of his sailors were injured.

“We lost a lot of good people, you know. “They didn’t do anything,” Fernandez said. “But we never know what will happen in a war.”

After the attack, Fernandez had to sweep up debris. That night he stood guard with a rifle to make sure no one tried to get on board. When it was time to rest, he fell asleep next to the ship’s dead. He only realized this when a fellow sailor woke him up and told him.

After the war, Fernandez worked as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California. His wife of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014. His oldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two other sons and a stepdaughter died.

He traveled to Hawaii three times to attend the Pearl Harbor commemoration. This year would have been his fourth trip.

Fernandez still enjoys music and goes dancing at a nearby restaurant once a week when he can. His favorite song is Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “All of Me,” a song that his nephew Joe Guthrie reportedly still knows by heart.

“The ladies flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.

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Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report from Lodi, California.