Lou Conter, the final survivor of the battleship USS Arizona, which sank in the course of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, died at his residence in Grass Valley, Calif., on Monday. He was 102.
Conter — who was simply 20 years outdated on the morning of the assault and had solely joined the navy two years earlier — was surrounded by household and died peacefully, in keeping with Pacific Historic Parks, a nonprofit that helps preserve the usArizona Memorial and different historic landmarks in Hawaii. The nonprofit confirmed Conter’s loss of life by his daughter.
The Arizona was the centerpiece of the carnage that morning. Of the greater than 2,400 service members and civilians killed that day, practically half — 1,177 — have been sailors and Marines aboard the Arizona. As Japanese bombers lay waste to Pearl Harbor’s “battleship row,” explosions ignited a large quantity of gunpowder saved on the Arizona. The ensuing explosion lifted the ship “30 to 40 toes out of the water,” Conter mentioned throughout a January 2008 interview with the Library of Congress’ Veterans Historical past Challenge.
The shock assault, which vaulted the U.S. into World Struggle II, was the deadliest international assault on U.S. soil earlier than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults killed practically 3,000 individuals in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Conter, a quartermaster, was lauded for serving to rescue fellow crew members in the course of the assault, in keeping with the Pacific Historic Parks submit. After the bombing, Conter remained enlisted till 1945, flying fight missions all through World Struggle II, in keeping with his interview with the Veterans Historical past Challenge. He additionally served within the Korean Struggle within the Nineteen Fifties and reached the rank of lieutenant commander.
Regardless of the traumatic occasions of that day, Conter was no stranger to the usArizona memorial in Honolulu. In 2016, he instructed a Occasions reporter that he visited the wrecked battleship each Dec. 7 to face aboard the Arizona as wreaths have been laid to recollect his fallen comrades.
“There have been 335 [sic] of us on the ship that acquired off that day,” he mentioned in 2016 as he stood close to the ship he virtually died on many years earlier. “We have been simply fortunate.”
Even at 95, Conter knew precisely the place he was standing when the assault started.
“I used to be on the quarterdeck, nearly the place we’re,” he instructed The Occasions. “All the things from proper over there ahead blew up and was on hearth.”
