99-year-old survivor of Pearl Harbor says memories of the attack are still vivid

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    HONOLULU (KITV) — Almost half of the people who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor were on-board the USS Arizona which sunk after the Japanese shot it down.

The last two survivors from the USS Arizona are Ken Potts and Lou Conter, both are 99-years-old.

Conter told KITV4’s Rick Quan while the attack on Pearl Harbor happened almost eighty years ago the memories remain vivid.

Lou Conter now lives quietly in Grass Valley, California. About an hour north of Sacramento. He’s still proudly wears his survivor jacket. His home is filled with Arizona memorabilia, including a piece of the wreckage. It comes from near the back of the ship where he was stationed that morning, he remembers the ship’s band had assembled on deck.

“Ten of them on the fantail ready to play colors at eight o’clock. We sounded general quarters and they all went their battle stations and every one of them were killed at their battle stations when the ship blew up. about seven or eight minutes after eight we took an armored piercing bomb, along side turret number four on the starboard side that went through five decks and exploded in the forward lower handling room. And it exploded about a million pounds of powder down there,” Conter said. “We laid down about 15 men that came out who were on fire, the skin would come off their hands when you try to grab them. We trained to do what we did. Everybody did their job, no one was lax, something that you had to do right then and there you didn’t think about it. You didn’t think about anything but get them down on deck and into the hospital.”

The fire didn’t go out for two more days. Lou also helped out with the salvage diving rescue crews, but found no survivors.

“It was just awful but that was something we he had to do and you just did,” Conter said.

After the war, Lou became an intelligence officer, flew combat in Korea, and created the Navy’s first survival evasion resistance and escape program.

However, he’ll always be best known for surviving that Sunday morning aboard the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, a day which would change the world forever.

“When I walk aboard the Arizona memorial, and see those 1177 names up there, I have to make the sign of the cross and say a prayer for them. And thank God, that my name is not on it, and my name is on the plaque outside for the survivors. I’m no hero, I just did my job,” Conter said.

Lou may not think so, but many do consider him an hero.

Conter says, God willing, he will be out here next year at the age of 100 to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

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