USS Arizona Survivor Lou Conter is 101-- Part 3

Lou Conter's autobiography, "The Lou Conter Story" recounts how one of the Japanese bombs penetrated five steel decks on the USS Arizona and ignited over 1 million pounds of gunpowder and thousands of pounds of ammunition.

"The ship was consumed on a giant fireball that looked as it it engulfed everything from the mainmast forward," he wrote.

He joined other survivors in tending to the injured, many of whom were blinded and badly burned.  The sailors only abandoned ship when their senior surviving officer was sure they had rescued all those still alive.

The Arizona's 1,177 dead account for nearly half the servicement killed in the bombing.  The battleship today sits where she sank  81 years ago, with more than 900 of her dead still entombed inside.

Conter wasn't injured at Pearl Harbor, nor during the rest of World War II or the Korean War.

--GreGen