The last survivor of the ship that sank after the bombing of Pearl Harbor dies
Kyiv • UNN
Lou Conter, the last surviving crew member of the USS Arizona battleship, which exploded and sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, has died at the age of 102.
Lou Conter, the last surviving crew member of the USS Arizona battleship, which exploded and sank during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, has died. This was reported by the Association in memory of the victims of the attack, reports UNN.
Details
Lou Conter, the last known survivor of the USS Arizona, which was bombed and sunk at Pearl Harbor in 1941, has died. He was 102. According to his daughter Luann Daly, Conter died Monday morning at his home in Grass Valley, California.
For reference
Only 335 of the more than 1,500 crew members of the Arizona survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Lou Conter, a 20-year-old petty officer on the ship at the time, was the last surviving crew member.
During the attack on Pearl Harbor, Conter helped wounded American soldiers.
The explosion lifted the battleship out of the water by 30-40 feet (9-12 meters), he said during a 2008 oral history interview on file at the Library of Congress.
According to Lou Conter, everything was engulfed in fire from the main mast forward.
In the days that followed, he jumped into the breach to extinguish fires in the harbor and to find and recover the bodies of the dead.
Shortly after the attack, Conter trained as a pilot and in 1943 joined the Black Cats, a military unit that flew bombing raids in bomber planes. After World War II, he also flew missions in the Korean War (1950-1953). In total, Conter flew more than 200 combat missions.
Throughout his career, Conter served as a military advisor to Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He also served combat missions in Korea and created a survival training program for the Navy.
Recall
Former U.S. Senator from Connecticut Joe Lieberman, who ran for vice president on the Democratic Party's ticket with Al Gore in 2000 and then with Republican John McCain in 2008, has died.
