Hello, welcome to episode 214 of the unauthorized history of the Pacific War podcast.

My name is Seth Peridon, story and deputy director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum here at Camp Shelby. And with me, as always, is my esteemed co-host, retired Navy Captain Bill Toaddy. Former Skipper of the Fast Attack Submarine U.S.S. Indianapolis, Commodore, Submarine Squadron 3 in Pearl Harbor, and many other assignments. How are you this fine morning, Bill? I'm doing great, great set yesterday i had the privilege and it really

was a true privilege of speaking to the maritime patrol association uh symposium and i was their

heritage speaker invited to speak about the u s eastern annapolis which i was so delighted to do but i also took the opportunity to speak about the USS Indianapolis, which I was so delighted to do. But I also took

the opportunity to talk about VP squadrons. And in fact, they were called VPB squadrons during

World War II, you know, whether it was the PBYs or the Venturas, all these other squadrons

that occurred that operated in the Pacific during World

War II. And I talk about the vast array of missions that these naval aviators conducted during

the war, not just bombing missions, VPB, but CSAR missions, of course, surveillance and reconnaissance

support to the Coast Watchers.

And, you know, just incredible how many different things these aviators did during the war.

And it was such a privilege to talk about all this to a group of admirals, Commodores, captains, commanding officers in the modern VP community.

Yeah. Yeah, the VPs played a significant role during our war that we talk about, obviously,

you know, and one of the cooler squadrons, or not squadrons, well, one of the cooler formations of

VPs, where we've talked about them in previous episodes and we'll

talk about them again with the black cats. I don't know how many black cat pilots or crewmen

are still alive today, but I do know of one. We got the sad news just a couple days ago that

now there is only one USS Arizona survivor still with us as of April 27th,

2023, and his name is Lou Contor.

Lou Conter was a survivor from the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941.

And he's a friend of mine.

I haven't spoken to him in several years, but I knew him quite well back in my days of World War II Museum.

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