Community Chat

[Marp]

HONOLULU -- Ken Potts, one of the last two remaining survivors of the USS Arizona battleship, which sank during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, has died. He was 102.

Howard Kenton Potts died Friday at the home in Provo, Utah, that he shared with his wife of 66 years, according to Randy Stratton, whose late father, Donald Stratton, was Potts' Arizona shipmate and close friend.

Stratton said Potts “had all his marbles” but lately was having a hard time getting out of bed. When Stratton spoke to Potts on his birthday, April 15, he was happy to have made it to 102.

“But he knew that his body was kind of shutting down on him, and he was just hoping that he could get better but (it) turned out not,” Stratton said.

Potts was born and raised in Honey Bend, Illinois, and enlisted in the Navy in 1939.

He was working as a crane operator shuttling supplies to the Arizona the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Pearl Harbor attack happened, according to a 2021 article by the Utah National Guard.

In a 2020 oral history interview with the American Veterans Center, Potts said a loudspeaker ordered sailors back to their ships so he got on a boat.

“When I got back to Pearl Harbor, the whole harbor was afire,” He said in the interview. “The oil had leaked out and caught on fire and was burning.”

Dozens of ships either sank, capsized or were damaged in the bombing of the Hawaii naval base, which catapulted the U.S. into World War II.

Sailors were tossed or forced to jump into the oily muck below, and Potts and his fellow sailors pulled some to safety in their boat.

The Arizona sank just nine minutes after being bombed, and its 1,177 dead account for nearly half the servicemen killed in the attack. Today the battleship still sits where it sank eight decades ago, with more than 900 dead entombed inside.

MORE Background:  abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ken-potts-2-uss-arizona-survivors-dies-102-98778466

[BoopOMatic]

 Wow, 102 years old! He had a long life.

[Franklinbell]

Wow! Rest In Peace.

[LindaSal]

May he rest in peace.

Pearl Harbor is one of those places you visit and leave much more humbled from when you arrrived.

[Jacie]

The Greatest Generation.

Rest In Peace.

[catter70]

When i was a kid, our neighbor across the street was a Pearl Harbor survivor. He died many years ago.

[meallen616]

[sunshine45]

may he rest in peace....

we were there last may and pearl harbor is a must see if you ever get the chance to go to hawaii. 

i wonder if he was planning on his ashes being interred at the USS ARIZONA?

[sann]

As someone has already said ..Greatest Generation 🇺🇸

[Spacrazy]

Thank you for your service, sir, and God Bless America 🇺🇸