Ken Potts: One of the last 2 USS Arizona survivors dies days after celebrating 102nd birthday
PROVO, UTAH: Ken Potts, one of the last two survivors of the USS Arizona battle that sank at Pearl Harbor, has died at the age of 102. Potts died on Friday at his home in Provo, Utah, surrounded by his wife of 66 years, Howard Kenton Potts.
Potts was only 22 years old when the USS Arizona was attacked by Japanese bombers on December 7, 1941. More than 1,177 sailors and Marines were killed on the ship, and Potts was one of only a few survivors.
READ MORE
Pearl Harbor survivor who was one of the last to leave sinking USS Arizona dies at 98
Pennsylvania police seek Bam Margera for assaulting brother and making death threats against family
Potts was pleased to have reached the age of 102
Randy Stratton, whose late father, Donald Stratton, was another USS Arizona survivor, as per Associated Press said, Potts “had all his marbles” but was having difficulty getting out of bed lately. Potts was pleased to have reached the age of 102 when Stratton spoke with him on his birthday, April 15. “But he knew that his body was kind of shutting down on him, and he was just hoping that he could get better but turned out not.”
California resident Lou Conter, 101, is the last survivor of the USS Arizona. Potts also termed a 'True American Hero' was born in Honey Bend, Illinois, and joined the Navy in 1939 as per the report. He was working as a crane operator transporting supplies to USS Arizona on the morning of December 7, 1941, when Japanese aircraft began striking US naval facilities in Pearl Harbor. Potts used his boat to rescue sailors who had been tossed into the water and bring them to a neighboring island after the attack began.
Potts was in Harbor when the ship sank 9 minutes after the attack, exploding
Potts was in Harbor when the ship sank nine minutes after the attack before exploding. "I still see and feel it. Most times as a nightmare," Potts told the Utah National Guard in a 2021 interview. "The whole place was on fire. The water was burning because the oil was on fire", said Potts before adding "The whole place was on fire. The water was burning because the oil was on fire."
Later, Potts along with five others were assigned a grim task to retrieve the bodies from the doomed battleship that he said, "was of hell of a job." Although Potts and his group were searching for survivors they found only bodies.
'Even after I got out of the Navy, I'd shake'
As per the Daily Mail, the battleship still sits where it sank in 1941 with 900 dead entombed inside. Potts stated decades later that as the attack was going on, some individuals were still giving commands, but there was also a lot of pandemonium. "Even after I got out of the Navy, out in the open, and heard a siren, I'd shake," he said.
'They had a sense of humor'
Several dozen Arizona survivors had their ashes deposited on the sinking battleship so they might be reunited with their shipmates, but Potts refused, according to Stratton. "He said he got off once, he's not going to go back on board again," he said. According to Stratton, many Arizona survivors shared a similar dry sense of humor. This included his own father, who was severely burned in the attack and refused to be returned to the ship as ashes in an urn.
"'I've cremated once. 'I'm not going to be cremated twice,' Donald Stratton remarked before his death in 2020 at the age of 97, according to the younger Stratton. "They had that all throughout their lives. They had the sense of humor, and they knew sooner or later they would pass" said Randy Stratton before adding "Our job now is to keep their memories alive."