GRASS VALLEY, CA — A 99-year-old California man was aboard the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor during the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack, and 79 years later remembers vividly the day then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared would forever "live in infamy."
Louis Conter of Grass Valley told FOX 40 he was not surprised at all when he saw the first Japanese planes attacking over Oahu.
"We knew that something was going to happen long before that; we'd been training for it for a year and a half," he told the television station.
Conter said he arrived at Pearl Harbor aboard the Arizona just two days before the attack that launched the United States into World War II. It was a 20-year-old Conter, the quartermaster third class on the battleship, who "steered the ship" in the port, he said.
He was one of only a few hundred people on board the Arizona to survive when a Japanese bomb caused the ship to explode.
"The fire was all around the ship where the oil was," he said in the FOX 40 news report.
First responders and community leaders in Grass Valley have honored Conter's service, earlier this year organizing a drive-by parade for his 99th birthday, The Union newspaper that covers Nevada County, California reported in September.
Next year, the World War II vet and longtime Navy man hopes to be at Pearl Harbor for the 80th anniversary remembrance ceremony.
"My doctor says, 'we're keeping you alive till you're 100,'" he told FOX 40.
Conter stayed on board the USS Arizona for about 30 minutes after the attack to try and rescue the other crewmen, he told FOX 40. He returned to the wreckage several times later to recover the bodies of those who died as a result of the bombing.
Yet, he still doesn't consider himself a hero.
"I'm no hero, I don't believe myself as a hero, I just did my job and did what had to be done to protect America and the American flag," he said.
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December 08, 2020 at 02:35AM
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Navy Veteran Remembers Pearl Harbor Attack 79 Years Later - Patch.com
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