The applause rose above Pearl Harbor, owning the moment as the old men stood for one more hurrah.

Some were stoic. Some wept. But each one of them, 350 survivors of an attack that changed the course of a nation, made good on their promise to remember the men who never got to grow old.

And in turn yesterday, more than 3,000 admirers, friends and families marked the 65th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by saluting the survivors with a thunderous ovation.

They could not have dreamed of this, not on the day that defined their lives.

So different was this day — and so different were they — when the Japanese bombers swept low over the harbor. When these men were young, teenagers many of them, they witnessed a fury that turned proud warships into burning platforms.

They saw death up close.

Gerald Bowman, an 87-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor from Parsons, Kan., told his children that it was his last wish to attend the ceremony yesterday.

"It's strictly an affair of the heart," said Bowman, who served aboard the USS New Orleans. "When I came in and sat down and looked around, I had tears in my eyes. I couldn't help it. I remember being on my ship the next day and watching sailors with big nets scooping out bodies and body parts from the water."

It was just as hard for 87-year-old Leonide Soucy, who traveled from Plainview, Texas. Soucy served aboard the USS Utah, whose rusting hulk still sits where it sunk on the far side of Ford Island.

"I'm old enough that I shouldn't be emotional, but it was all I could do to not cry out loud during the ceremony," he said. "I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat."

Like all the Pearl Harbor survivors, Soucy wore a weathered cap honoring his ship. But on his cap, Soucy had pinned a red button with a Chinese character that translates to "love."

"I don't want to die with hate in my heart," he said.

EMOTIONAL TIME

The event brought numerous extended family groups — children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren.

Curt Moore, the 53-year-old son of a survivor, found it hard to discuss the reunion without choking up. Many of those who died were younger than his 20-year-old daughter, he said.

"That's what hit me the hardest," said Moore, a Dover, Ohio, resident whose family sent 11 people to the ceremony.

The gathering yesterday, held on base at the Navy's Kilo Pier, was directly across from the USS Arizona Memorial. Organizers billed it as "The Last Reunion" because the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, which has come here every five years since 1964, announced it would no longer mark the event with organized formal gatherings in Hawai'i.

"Every year we are reminded that time marches on and each year there are fewer heroes represented here," said Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Most are in their 80s and some in their 90s. They are still possessed of firm handshakes, quick wit and a ribald joke or two. But in quiet moments, they often have told Doug Lentz, the National Park Service superintendent of the USS Arizona Memorial, that their greatest fear is that the nation will forget Pearl Harbor.

Lentz stood before them yesterday and told them otherwise.

"We will not let people forget, ever," he said firmly. "A nation remembers. It is our duty. It is our trust. It is our charge to remember Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor survivors, we will not let you down."

As it does every year, the ceremony featured a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the time the attack began. The harbor, dulled by overcast skies, hushed with a knowing pause. Everyone knew what came next.

Then four Hawai'i Air National Guard F-15 jets roared over the harbor in missing man formation, a thundering retort.

NEW GENERATION

Former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw addressed the survivors as the ceremony's keynote speaker. The attack on Pearl Harbor was the end of innocence, he said. It left Americans "wounded and outraged," but it also inspired them to a level of resolve that would change the world.

"It was here that the greatest generation was forged," he said.

But when he was done praising the veterans, Brokaw also asked the crowd to remember the new generation of men and women all around them.

They were everywhere in the crowd, smartly dressed in creased uniforms with baby-faced expressions as young as the men who died 65 years ago. Their parents live with daily fear that they will have to pay the cost of a new war with the lives of their children.

"Let them know that however we feel about the war, they are in our hearts," Brokaw said. "You can hate the war, but you must always honor the warrior."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.