PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) – Ira “Ike” Schab, a 104-year-old survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack, spent six weeks in physical therapy to build the strength to stand and stand during a memorial ceremony honoring the victims of the Japanese bombing that plunged the United States into World War II to salute about 83 years ago.

On Saturday, Schab rose carefully from his wheelchair, raised his right hand and returned the salute from the sailors standing on a destroyer and a submarine passing in the harbor.

“He worked hard because this is his goal,” said his daughter Kimberlee Heinrichs, who traveled with Schab to Hawaii from their home in Beaverton, Oregon, to attend the ceremony. “He wanted to be able to stand for that.”

Schab is one of only two soldiers who survived the attack and made it to an annual U.S. Navy and National Park Service memorial ceremony on a meadow overlooking the harbor. A third survivor had planned to join them but had to cancel for health reasons.

The bombing on December 7, 1941 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.

Dozens of survivors once attended the event, but their participation 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.

Schab agreed when ceremony organizers asked him earlier this year to salute on behalf of all World War II survivors and veterans.

“It was an honor to do it. I’m glad I was able to get up. I’m getting old, you know,” he said.

Schab was a sailor on the USS Dobbin and a tuba player in the ship’s band at the time of the attack. He had showered and put on a clean uniform when he heard the call for the fire department.

He rushed up and saw Japanese planes flying overhead and the USS Utah capsizing. He quickly went back below deck to join a chain of sailors shelling an anti-aircraft gun.

Ken Stevens, 102, who served on the USS Whitney, accompanied Schab at the ceremony. 100-year-old USS Curtiss sailor Bob Fernandez had planned to attend but had to cancel for health reasons.

Those attending the ceremony observed a minute’s silence at 7:54 a.m., the same time the attack began eight decades ago. Shortly thereafter, F-22 jets flew overhead in missing-person formation.

Fernandez, speaking before the ceremony, recalled being shocked when the attack began.

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

Fernandez was a cook on the Curtiss and his job that morning was to bring 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.

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

“I’m not a hero,” he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from California, where he now lives with his nephew in Lodi. “I’m just an ammunition dispenser.”