Book Review: Ship of Ghosts
Edward Lundquist - Sea Classics
May 01, 2008
Ship of Ghosts: The Story of The USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors By James D. Hornfischer
ISBN: 978-0-553-38450-5 - $15.00. Bantam Books, New York, NY; www. ban tamdell. com
Far more than the story of a heroic lone warship and her hapless crew this is the epic saga about America's darkest hours in the Pacific War. While the author keeps his focus on the events leading up to the tragic loss of the cruiser USS Houston, flagship of our ill-begotten prewar Asiatic Fleet, he skillfully manages to simultaneously tell the larger story about the hastily assembled ABDA fleet which as a political whim was placed in the hands of Dutchmen who, because of the language barrier, could not even effectively communicate with the American ships under their command. Thrust into this abyss of confusion, doubt and ineptitude, the fate of USS Houston became a forgone conclusion which left only the how and where of her ultimate destruction to be determined by the superior firepower of the Imperial Japanese Navy
The Houston indeed went down fighting, but that was only the beginning of her surviving crewmen's torturous ordeal as POWs made "Guests of the Emperor." Transported to work on the infamous BurmaThailand Railway of Death, Houston's noble enslaved and unsung survivors wrote an account of honor and heroism over the next three-years that became legend in itself as one of WWIFs most brutal ordeals - equaled only by the Bataan death march and Hitler's extermination camps. Based on a variety of sources including many interviews with the survivors themselves, author Hornfischer writes a compelling and awe-inspiring account of Houston's last battle and the riveting story of how a ragged and rugged bunch of American bluejackets showed the enemy that they too knew no surrender. Gripping reading, this is a story that could not be better told.
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