IWKnights Corner for November 13, 2022 — 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Did you know this about the IW Knights of Columbus? 

“MORE THAN 2,400 Americans were killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941, the epochal day that triggered the United States’ entrance into the Second World War.  Nearly half the casualties came from a single battleship: the USS Arizona.

Twenty-year-old quartermaster Louis Conter was one of only 335 Arizona sailors to survive.  Now, at age 101, the Knight of Columbus is one of just two men who can tell the story of that day from personal memory.

Born in Ojibwa, Wisconsin, on Sept. 13, 1921, Conter had joined the Navy at age 18.  On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, he was at his station at the stern of the Arizona when he heard the whine of engines overhead just before 8 a.m.

‘Everyone saw the red ball on the planes,’ recalled Conter, a member of Father Nicholas Phelan Council 1875 in Grass Valley, California.  ‘It was the Japanese rising sun, and we all knew what was happening.’

Nearly the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet was moored at Pearl Harbor.  Sailors raced to their battle stations as 183 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes rained firepower down upon the fleet, taking aim at the eight battleships.

At 8:09 a.m., a 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb landed on the forward deck of the Arizona.  It passed through five steel decks and ignited over a million pounds of gunpowder and hundreds of thousands of pounds of ammunition.‘The bow of the ship, all 34,000 tons, raised about 30 to 40 feet out of the water,’ Conter recounted in his memoir, published last year.  ‘The ship was consumed in an enormous fireball that looked as if it engulfed everything from the mainmast forward’.

'Conter and all other able-bodied men immediately tended to the wounded who were emerging from the flames — blinded, wounded, some of them literally on fire — and transported them to lifeboats.  After the call was given to abandon the rapidly sinking ship, Conter joined several other survivors in a boat and rescued dozens of men in the water.

Shortly after 9:55 a.m., the Japanese withdrew.  Of the 2,403 Americans killed in the attack, 1,177 were sailors and Marines stationed on the Arizona.  The United States declared war on Japan the next day.

Conter went on to attend flight school and served as a pilot in the South Pacific, where he was shot down twice.  The first time, he and the crew had to evacuate their PBY Catalina in shark-infested waters on the coast of New Guinea.  When the commanding officer expressed little hope of surviving, Conter countered: ‘Baloney, you’re not dead yet!  Hold hands, tread water lightly, save your strength, and if a shark comes along, hit it in the nose with your fists.  Recalling the events, Conter added, ‘And when the first one came along, I hit it in the nose and — boom! — it swam away, and they realized I was right’.

Conter continued his military service in World War II, later flying combat missions and serving as an intelligence officer during the Korean War.  He also worked in special operations and helped establish the Navy’s first SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) program.

After 28 years of service, Conter retired from the Navy in 1967 as a lieutenant commander.  He participated in the 50th anniversary ceremony of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1991 and has returned since on many occasions.

‘When I walk aboard the USS Arizona Memorial and see those 1,177 names up there, I have to make the sign of the cross and say a prayer for them,’ he said.  ‘And I thank God my name is on the plaque outside with the survivors.’

The last time Conter traveled to Hawaii for the annual Remembrance Ceremony was in 2019.  Advised recently by his doctor that another trip would not be in his best interest, Conter plans to make a livestreamed appearance at the upcoming ceremony in December.”

  The above article was written by ANDREW J. MATT, who is the managing editor of Columbia and a member of Father Kuster Council 3037 in Chester, Conn. It can be found on the Columbia On-line magazine at KofC.org site – or at IW Knights on IWKnights9981.com/bulletin, on facebook.com/IWknights9981, and on Twitter at twitter.com/IwKnights or by contacting Rob Schultz at (314) 973-2373.

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