Ken Potts, one in every of final 2 USS Arizona survivors, dies at 102
Ken Potts, one of many final two remaining survivors of the usArizona battleship, which sank in the course of the 1941 Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, has died.
He was 102.
Howard Kenton Potts died Friday on the house in Provo, Utah, that he shared along with his spouse of 66 years, in keeping with Randy Stratton, whose late father, Donald Stratton, was Potts’ Arizona shipmate and shut buddy.
Stratton stated Potts “had all his marbles” however currently was having a tough time getting away from bed. When Stratton spoke to Potts on his birthday, April 15, he was glad to have made it to 102.
“However he knew that his physique was type of shutting down on him, and he was simply hoping that he may get higher however (it) turned out not,” Stratton stated.
Potts was born and raised in Honey Bend, Illinois, and enlisted within the Navy in 1939.
He was working as a crane operator shuttling provides to the Arizona the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Pearl Harbor assault occurred, in keeping with a 2021 article by the Utah National Guard.
In a 2020 oral history interview with the American Veterans Center, Potts stated a loudspeaker ordered sailors again to their ships so he bought on a ship.
“After I bought again to Pearl Harbor, the entire harbor was afire,” He stated within the interview. “The oil had leaked out and caught on hearth and was burning.”
Dozens of ships both sank, capsized, or have been broken within the bombing of the Hawaii naval base, which catapulted the U.S. into World Conflict II.
Sailors have been tossed or pressured to leap into the oily muck beneath, and Potts and his fellow sailors pulled some to security of their boat.
The Arizona sank simply 9 minutes after being bombed, and its 1,177 lifeless account for almost half the servicemen killed within the assault.
Right now the battleship nonetheless sits the place it sank eight a long time in the past, with greater than 900 lifeless entombed inside.
Potts recalled a long time later that some individuals have been nonetheless giving orders within the midst of the assault however there was additionally numerous chaos. He carried his recollections of the assault over the course of his lengthy life.
“Even after I bought out of the Navy, out within the open, and heard a siren, I’d shake,” he stated.
Stratton famous that the one remaining survivor from the Arizona is now Lou Conter, who’s 101 and residing in California.
“That is historical past. It’s going away,” Stratton stated, including: “And as soon as (Conter is) gone, who tells all their tales?”
A number of dozen Arizona survivors have had their ashes interred on the sunken battleship so they may be part of their shipmates, however Potts didn’t need that, in keeping with Stratton.
“He stated he bought off as soon as, he’s not going to return on board once more,” he stated.
Stratton stated many Arizona survivors shared the same dry humorousness. That included his personal father, who was severely burned within the assault and in addition didn’t need to return to the ship as ashes in an urn.
“’I’ve been cremated as soon as. I’m not going to be cremated twice,’” Donald Stratton joked, in keeping with the youthful Stratton, earlier than his dying in 2020 at age 97.
“That they had that each one all through their lives. That they had the humorousness, and so they knew ultimately they’d go,” Randy Stratton stated. “Our job now could be to maintain their recollections alive.”
Potts is survived by his spouse, Doris. Data on different survivors was not instantly out there.