LIFE
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia lgainesvilletimes.com
Midweek Edition-April 3-4, 2024 3B
Lou Conter, last survivor of USS Arizona, dies at 102
Rich Pedroncelli Associated Press
Pearl Harbor survivor Lou Conter, 101, is seen at his home in Grass Valley, Calif., Nov. 18, 2022.
Conter, the last living survivor of the USS Arizona battleship that exploded and sank during the
Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, died on Monday, April 1, following congestive heart failure, his
daughter said. He was 102.
Craig T. Kojima Honolulu Star-Advertiser via AP
Lou Conter, an Arizona crewman, attends ceremonies for the
75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7,
2016, in Honolulu.
BY AUDREY MCAVOY
Associated Press
HONOLULU — Lou Conter,
the last living survivor of the USS
Arizona battleship that exploded
and sank during the Japanese
bombing of Pearl Harbor, has
died. He was 102.
Conter passed away on Monday
at his home in Grass Valley,
California, following congestive
heart failure, his daughter,
Louann Daley said, adding she
was beside him along with two of
her brothers, James and Jeff.
The Arizona lost 1,177 sailors
and Marines in the 1941 attack
that launched the United States
into World War II. The battleship's
dead account for nearly half of
those killed in the attack.
Conter was a quartermaster,
standing on the main deck of the
Arizona as Japanese planes flew
overhead at 7:55 a.m. on Dec.
7 that year. Sailors were just
beginning to hoist colors or raise
the flag when the assault began.
Conter recalled how one
bomb penetrated steel decks 13
minutes into the battle and set off
more than 1 million pounds of
gunpowder stored below.
The explosion lifted the
battleship 30 to 40 feet out of the
water, he said during a 2008 oral
history interview stored at the
Library of Congress. Everything
was on fire from the mainmast
forward, he said.
“Guys were running out of the
fire and trying to jump over the
sides," Conter said. “Oil all over
the sea was burning."
His autobiography “The Lou
Conter Story" recounts how he
joined other survivors in tending
to the injured, many of them
blinded and badly burned. The
sailors only abandoned ship when
their senior surviving officer was
sure they had rescued all those
still alive.
The rusting wreckage of
the Arizona still lies where it
sank. More than 900 sailors and
Marines remain entombed inside.
Only 335 Arizona crew members
survived.
Conter went to flight school
after Pearl Harbor, earning his
wings to fly PBY patrol bombers,
which the Navy used to look for
submarines and bomb enemy
targets. He flew 200 combat
missions in the Pacific with a
“Black Cats" squadron, which
conducted dive bombing at night
in planes painted black.
In 1943, he and his crew where
shot down in waters near New
Guinea and had to avoid sharks. A
sailor expressed doubt they would
survive, to which Conter replied,
“baloney."
“Don't ever panic in any
situation. Survive is the first
thing you tell them. Don't panic
or you're dead,” he said. They
were quiet and treaded water until
another plane came hours later
and dropped them a lifeboat.
In the late 1950s, he was made
the Navy's first SERE officer —
an acronym for survival, evasion,
resistance and escape. He spent
the next decade training Navy
pilots and crew on how to survive
if they're shot down in the jungle
and captured as a prisoner of
war. Some of his pupils used his
lessons as POWs in Vietnam.
Conter retired in 1967 after 28
years in the Navy.
Conter was born in Ojibwa,
Wisconsin, on Sept. 13,1921. His
family later moved to Colorado
where he walked five miles one
way to school outside Denver.
He enlisted in the Navy after
he turned 18, getting $17 a month
and a hammock for his bunk at
boot camp.
Conter had been getting weaker
and weaker in recent months and
was hospitalized for 10 days
in February, his daughter said.
He had been in hospice since
returning home.
He told his family he loved
them, thanked them for being
with him and taking care of him
at home.
“I'm glad he's at peace. I'm
glad he didn't suffer. I know
when he transitioned over, he had
so many people there waiting for
him - his wife Val, who he loved
dearly,” Daley said.
Conter is also survived
by another son, Tony, and
a stepson Ron Fudge, and
many grandchildren, great
grandchildren, nieces and
nephews. Funeral arrangements
were pending. The family plans to
bury him in Grass Valley, next to
his late wife Valerie, who died in
2016 after they had been married
for 45 years.
With Conter's death, there
are now 19 survivors of the
Pearl Harbor attack still living,
according to Kathleen Farley, the
California state chair of the Sons
and Daughters of Pearl Harbor
Survivors. About 87,000 military
personnel were on Oahu on Dec.
7, according to a rough estimate
compiled by military historian J.
Michael Wenger.
In his later years, Conter
became a fixture at annual
remembrance ceremonies in
Pearl Harbor that the Navy and
the National Park Service jointly
hosted on the anniversaries of
the 1941 attack. When he lacked
the strength to attend in person,
he recorded video messages for
those who gathered and watched
remotely from his home in
California.
In 2019, when he was 98, he
said he liked going to remember
those who lost their lives.
“It's always good to come back
and pay respect to them and give
them the top honors that they
deserve,” he said.
Though many treated the
shrinking group of Pearl Harbor
survivors as heroes, Conter
refused the label.
“The 2,403 men that died are
the heroes. And we’ve got to
honor them ahead of everybody
else. And I've said that every time,
and I think it should be stressed,”
Conter told The Associated
Press in a 2022 interview at his
California home.
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