Ken Potts, Oldest Survivor of U.S.S. Arizona Sinking, Dies at 102

After the Japanese attack, he was assigned to the Pearl Harbor port director’s office for the duration of the war. One of his duties was delivering confidential orders to arriving ship commanders informing them of their destinations in the Pacific

He was discharged in 1945 as a boatswain’s mate first class. Returning to Illinois, he briefly worked as a carpenter. He moved to Colorado, where he helped build homes, and moved again, in 1946, to Utah, where he owned and managed a used car lot for the next 30 years.

Among his survivors are his wife, Doris, whom he married in 1957, as well as his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Mr. Potts returned to Pearl Harbor on several occasions, the first time in 1986 for a commemoration. He returned in 2011 as a guest of the Timpview High School marching band of Provo, which performed at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the attack.

The U.S.S. Arizona Memorial draws some 1.7 million visitors a year. For decades the submerged battleship continued to shed black tears in the form of about a quart of oil leaking from somewhere inside hull every day. Mr. Potts, too, retained a legacy of that Sunday morning in 1941.

“For a long time,” he said, “even after I got out of the Navy, when I was out in the open and hear a siren, I’d shake.”

After their deaths, several dozen veterans of the Arizona rejoined their shipmates by having their ashes interred in the sunken vessel, one as recently as 2021. Mr. Potts preferred a more traditional funeral, according to Randy Stratton, the son of a former shipmate and friend, Donald Stratton, who died in 2020 at 97.

“He said he got off once,” Mr. Stratton said of Mr. Potts, referring to the Arizona. “He’s not going to go back on board again.”