Remembering Lou Conter

We've lost last survivor of the USS Arizona

Lou Conter was a survivor and a hero. He was the last survivor of the USS Arizona, sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor so many years ago. Conter passed away peacefully a week ago, at age 102, in his California home surrounded by family.

The former Navy ship’s Quartermaster would never have referred to himself as a hero. He often addressed the hero tag by reminding folks that the real heroes were the servicemen who gave their lives at Pearl Harbor. He felt the survivors of Pearl Harbor and World War II were able to return home, have careers, and grow families. At speaking engagements over the years, Conter made a point to remind his audience that Pearl Harbor was only one day in his life of being a sailor fighting in World War II.

Conter was a member of what people recognize as the Greatest Generation. He learned about hard work from his father, who worked many years at a Denver area meat-packing plant. Lou worked at the plant during his senior year of high school but enlisted in the Navy in 1939, but was called to service by the $17 per month the Navy could offer him. I believe Conter would not have thought his early hard work to be uncommon. He would probably consider his parents’ generation to be the one recognized as great. 

Photo by Ryan Parker on Unsplash

That Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Conter was the Quartermaster of the watch on the Arizona deck. His duty station was at the stern of the ship. It was a pleasant sunny Pearl Harbor morning. On the fantail, the ship’s band assembled, a Marine Color Guard in tow, for colors to be raised. A battleship Quartermaster’s job was to assist ship officers of the deck performing navigation, control, and bridge watch duties. Interestingly, Conter was the helmsman who brought the Arizona to dock for the final time when the ship returned to Pearl Harbor from maneuvers on December 5, later reflecting how he little understood that the battleship would soon be moored in the exact spot for eternity.

Fate had a large hand in the Arizona actually being at Pearl Harbor on December 7; it had been scheduled to leave for California during the summer of 1941 for an equipment upgrade. The trip was delayed. Additionally, the ship was supposed to stay out on maneuvers until December 8, but was ordered back to harbor early. Arizona, BB-39, was scheduled to leave for the Bremerton, Washington shipyard, after a stop in San Pedro, the Saturday after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Conter should not have been on the Arizona that Sunday. Accepted to flight school as a naval aviator in Pensacola, Florida, his travel orders had him booked on a cruise ship leaving Pearl Harbor prior to the attack. The ship would have spent nine days cruising in Hawaii, and then off to California. Arizona’s commander, Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh, pulled Conter aside and kindly informed him that he was not going to allow the Navy to pay for a sailor to take a pleasure cruise back to the mainland. Conter would return to California with the Arizona; flight school would wait.

Later, Conter did become a flying Quartermaster. He graduated flight school and was assigned to fly patrol seaplanes, the PBY Catalina Black Cats. He survived being shot down on missions twice in the Pacific theater. Survival was a major theme for Conter. After WWII, he was one of the founding SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) officers who developed training, which is now mandatory for all U.S. Navy aviators.

With Lou Conter’s passing, none of the 335 Arizona survivors are with us. Four years ago, I wrote a post on Remembering Pearl Harbor.  Here is what I wrote about Conter.

Quartermaster Third Class Louis Conter was securing the quarterdeck of the USS Arizona docked quayside at Pearl Harbor at 8:05 AM on the morning of December 7 1941. The Arizona was preparing to make way for California within the hour.  Minutes later, the first Japanese wave arrived, and an armor-piercing bomb found its way to the Arizona and detonated starboard side forward. Five decks below, it found its way and exploded amidst millions of pounds of power stored in the turret number one and two handling room. It was one of the few vulnerable locations on a battleship of that type. This was a lucky shot from the Japanese perspective. The order to abandon ship would be soon forthcoming as surviving crew did their best to suppress the fire and aid burned crew mates.

Recently Conter recounted what he experienced on the Arizona. The forward section of The Arizona was “burning like mad”.  We had “laid down fifteen men that came out and were on fire”. Conter added that “we were trained to do what we did” and that “you had to do your duty and you did not think about it”.

Conter was active his whole life in keeping Pearl Harbor remembered. He attended Pearl Harbor Day in Hawaii many times, even at the age of 99. Conter took being the last Arizona survivor seriously and felt the weight of ensuring his lost shipmates’ service and sacrifice would not be lost from the American public memory.

In 2021 Conter published the “Lou Conter Story” so that the first-hand accounts of his years of service would be available for future generations.

Contact Jay Berman on the platform formerly known as Twitter at @curmudgeon_NH.