Lou Conter was one among solely 93 males on board the battleship to outlive its bombing in Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Arizona sank within the Honolulu harbor, killing 1,177 sailors and Marines and drawing the US into conflict.
Conter’s daughter confirmed his demise to The Related Press, saying the veteran died of congestive coronary heart failure at his residence in Grass Valley, California.
Conter was stationed on the USS Arizona as a quartermaster and was standing on the ship’s foremost deck when Japanese planes appeared within the skies round 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941. An armor-piercing bomb blew up a couple of million kilos of gunpowder sitting within the USS Arizona’s hull, lifting the ship almost 40 toes out of the water, Conter stated throughout a 2008 oral historical past.
Conter was unhurt within the preliminary assault and rapidly started to assist the ship’s remaining survivors, lots of whom had been burned. He was ultimately taken to shore by a lifeboat and spent the next days recovering our bodies, in accordance with his memoir, “The Lou Conter Story: From U.S.S. Arizona Survivor to Unsung American Hero.”
After Pearl Harbor, Conter attended flight college. He flew 200 fight missions within the Pacific and later skilled Navy pilots in survival expertise. He retired from the Navy in 1967 after 28 years served.
In his older age, Canter commonly attended Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremonies and rebuked ideas that he was a hero.
“The two,403 males that died are the heroes,” he informed the AP in 2022, referring to the variety of Individuals who died within the Pearl Harbor assault. “I am not a hero. I used to be simply doing my job.”
