Ray Emory was born in Peoria, Illinois, one of eight children. His father lost his leg during the Great Depression, making an already difficult time "pretty rough." When he graduated from high school in 1938, he became the chief breadwinner in the family and worked in grocery stores. In the summer of 1940, Emory could see that war was imminent, and he was "teed off" at the guy he worked for, so he joined the Navy. He was sworn in on 13 August and sent to Great Lakes for boot camp. In October of 1940 he was deployed to Honolulu, Hawaii, and assigned to the USS Savannah (CL-42); his day position was on the .50 caliber machine guns, at night he worked the searchlights. Emory wanted to become a gun striker, and in the summer of 1941 he was sent to machine gun school. The USS Savannah (CL-42) sailed away before he finished, so he was reassigned to the USS Honolulu (CL-48). Emory said he was not well received because the ship already had enough gunners. So he started reading manuals, and easily passed the exam for coxswain. After new rates came through, he made third class and stayed aboard about a year as a boatswain's mate, then he headed for new construction.

Life was rather simple in Honolulu, Hawaii when Ray Emory got there in October 1941. He didn't drink in those days, so partying wasn't a "big deal" for him, leaving little else to do ashore besides going for a walk, or heading for the beach or the movies. When war came along, Emory said, it was a totally different Navy, and there was less liberty. In what he called the "old Navy," he lived aboard a ship, wore a uniform both on ship and ashore, and knew the day of the week by the set routine. The sailors were always "holy stoning" the decks, and scraping, wire brushing and painting whether it was needed or not. He remembers having table service for meals on porcelain plates; later, there was a steam table chow line. Emory recalled that kids in Honolulu saved dimes to have a beautiful silver bowl made for presentation when the USS Honolulu (CL-48) was commissioned. On the afternoon of 7 December [Annotator's Note: 7 December 1941], he saw men carrying the thing out onto the dock, and it disappeared. Emory instigated a search for it many years later and it was found in a warehouse in Philadelphia, and subsequently returned to the ship. Emory said that in the weeks just prior to the Japanese attack, everyone in the Navy had the sense that war was surely coming, they just didn't know when or where or how it would start. His ship was running at sea, darkened at night and operating more or less under war conditions. About a week before the raid, Emory was standing at a gear locker watching the Japanese ambassador take off on a Pan-Am clipper flight to Washington, D.C. at about 4:30 in the afternoon when he heard someone say, "Well, there either goes peace or war."

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Ray Emory very clearly remembers that he was sitting on the bottom of a three tier rack of bunks, reading the Sunday morning newspaper. At about 7:55 in the morning, he heard the alarm, and thought, "This is a hell of a time to have a drill." He hit the ladder and went aft, portside, outboard of turret number four, wrapped around and went up to the two .50 caliber machine guns aft of the portside superstructure. He was first of his four man gunner crew to arrive, and had uncovered one, and partially uncovered another machine gun, when he saw a plane go by and drop a torpedo. He was still under the impression that it was a mock air raid, but the torpedo "went right inside the Oklahoma" [Annotator's Note: USS Oklahoma (BB-37)] and exploded. The next plane that dropped a torpedo was emblazoned with a "big red ball," and Emory realized it was a Japanese bomber. He wondered who declared war and how they got there so fast. He was breaking open the ammunition box when another of his mates arrived and they both scrambled to load the ammunition. Then the third class gunner [Annotator's Note: Gunner's Mate 3rd Class] in charge of them all showed up, and instinctively flipped the switch that controlled the pump for the water-cooled guns. They "got the gun blaring," and fired at anything that came close. Emory said nobody knows if they "knocked down" anything, but he saw one torpedo plane that "went in the drink" between the ship and the sub [Annotator's Note: submarine] base. Emory remembers partly clouded sky, and he now knows that there were 29 torpedo planes in the air; the Japanese lost five out of the last seven that flew over. There were no casualties in his area, but a bomb exploded in the space between the dock and his ship, caving the hull in about four or five feet deep, and rending a 20 foot vertical gash that opened up the seams. It was put into dry dock, but the USS Honolulu (CL-48) was already afloat shortly after the first of the year, headed to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. Emory claims that there is nothing in the Honolulu's records that show it was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December [Annotator's Note: 7 December 1941].

On 7 December 1941, Ray Emory stayed on his gun all day and all night, without relief. After he saw the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) blow up, he doesn't remember ever looking at Battleship Row again; his post faced Hickam Field. He didn't hear the USS Arizona (BB-39) explode, because his ship's three inch guns were right below his battle station, and the first round they fired deafened him, making that shot the last thing he heard that day. At one point he picked up an empty .50 caliber shell from the first round he fired, and stuck it in his pocket; he still has it. Emory has no idea how many rounds he personally shot during that interval, but he said they emptied their ready box, and had to get more ammunition and belt it in the afternoon. He quoted records that show the USS Honolulu (CL-48) fired a total of 4,500 .50 caliber rounds during and after the Japanese attack. He said there were a lot of jumpy sailors that night, "picking out stars and shooting at them." There was a minor squall and it rained a little, but on the whole, it was dead quiet and spooky. The only light around came from the burning USS Arizona (BB-39). The following Saturday, the ship was moved into the dry dock recently vacated by the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), and was under repair for about two weeks.

The USS Honolulu (CL-48) went back to San Francisco and Ray Emory was heading for Melbourne, Australia three or four days later. In March 1942, they took the first convoy up to New Caledonia, came back up to Pearl Harbor, and into San Diego, California to pick up Marines headed for the Samoan Islands. In the latter part of May, the ship traveled, in haste, to Pearl Harbor, to prepare for the Battle of Midway. They were posted in and around the Aleutians and eventually got in on the last night battle off Guadalcanal, during which the Minneapolis (CA-36) and the New Orleans (CA-32) both lost their bows, the Pensacola (CA-24) took a torpedo amidships, and the Northampton (CA-26) was sunk. The Honolulu was in the middle of these ships and, according to Emory, "never got a scratch." The ship went through the slot between Guadalcanal and Savo Island, and at one point, while helping survivors from the Northampton get on board, Emory gave a hand to a kid he knew from high school. After the battle, the ship was working out of Esprito Santos, and Emory left the Honolulu for the United States for reassignment to an amphibious transport. Starting in Wellington, New Zealand the ship took the 2nd Marine Division to Tarawa, then ferried troops to hot spots like Kwjalein, Saipan, Guam, Leyte, Lingayen Gulf and Iwo Jima. Emory was in San Francisco, California, loading up for the invasion of Japan on the day the war ended. He said the V-J Day celebration was "a wild one," and went on for three days before they were run back to the ship. He made one "magic carpet" [Annotator's Note: trips made to return American servicemen from overseas back to the United States] run to the Philippines and back to San Francisco, then, with less than 90 days duty left, Emory boarded the USS Chilton (APA-38) to go to the atomic bomb test site. He was discharged from Seattle, Washington.

After his discharge, Ray Emory went to college to study architecture and graduated from the University of Washington. He moved to Hawaii, and these days he works on identifying the remains of fallen American soldiers and repatriating them when requested. He embarked on the occupation just before the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He meant to bring flags and flowers to graves in The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific located at Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu, Hawaii. Too many grave markers had the inscription, "Unknown," some with the date 7 December 1941, and he started researching records. He worked with his congresswoman to get legislation passed that helped change the enigmatic markers to better identify those buried in the site. As a result, many servicemen have finally gone home.