01/04/2024
(APRIL 01, 2024) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS: it’s with great sadness we learned the passing of Lou Conter, Last Survivor of USS Arizona From Pearl Harbor Attack. He was 102.
Of the U.S. Navy warships lost or damaged during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the hardest hit was by far the USS Arizona, which was struck by four armor-piercing bombs. One of those bombs blew up the ship’s magazine, causing an explosion which sank the Pennsylvania-class battleship and killed 1,177 sailors and Marines, hundreds of whom are still entombed there to this day.
Among the survivors of the explosion was 20-year-old Lou Conter, a quartermaster who was standing on the Arizona’s quarterdeck at 7:55 a.m. when the first wave of 138 Japanese airplanes launched their surprise assault. Conter not only survived the explosion of the ship’s magazine, but he survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and the rest of World War II.
Conter was born Sept. 13, 1921 in Ojibwa, Wisconsin, enlisting in the Navy when he turned 18 in 1939. After three months of boot camp in San Diego, he was sent to the USS Arizona as a regular deckhand on the forward port side of the ship. After making Seaman 2nd Class, he was transferred to the quartermaster division. The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred just over a year later.
After Pearl Harbor, Conter continued serving in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. He became a naval aviator, piloting PBY-1 Flying Boats for Patrol Bombing Squadron 11, a “Black Cat” unit, hunting Japanese submarines at night while painted black. He flew 200 missions in the Pacific Theater where he was shot down twice, both time rowing to safety aboard a raft. After the war, he joined the reserve and went home to California.
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The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation
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