The last remaining sailor of the USS Arizona, which sank during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, has died at the age of 102.
Louis Conter passed away “peacefully” on Monday at his home in California “surrounded by his family,” according to Louis Conter’s Facebook post, the veteran’s daughter LouAnn Dailey said. Ta. Pacific Historical Park – USS Arizona Memorial. (Related: One of the last survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack dies at age 102)
Conter was one of 1,177 sailors aboard the USS Arizona on that infamous day in 1941, serving as a quartermaster. Only 335 people survived the Japanese surprise attack.
Mr. Conter conducted an oral history. interview In 2008, he submitted his military records, including his personal account of the attack on Pearl Harbor, to the Library of Congress. He said that a single explosion from a Japanese bomb lifted the doomed battleship 30 to 40 feet above the water, and much of the ship was on fire.
“The men were running out of the fire and trying to jump over the side,” Konter recalled. “The oil in the sea was burning.”
Contour’s military service did not end with the attack on Pearl Harbor. A Navy veteran, he became a VP-11 Black Cat pilot and survived several shootdowns during World War II, according to a Facebook post from the USS Arizona Memorial. Conter later served in the Korean War as an intelligence officer, was the founder of the Navy’s first SERE program (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape), and served as a military advisor to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. .
“They call a lot of us heroes, but I’ve always said we’re not heroes,” Contour said. Said KCRA 3 said in a 2023 interview. “Heroes are those who were right there that day and lost their lives. They gave up everything. We returned to America. We got married. We have children and grandchildren. We are still here. They were lost there forever.”
Conter was in hospice care for the last four weeks of her life, the newspaper said.
