Ship of Ghosts: Book Preview
In remembrance of the brave men of the U.S.S. Houston and all those who gave their lives in service to America
My grandfather died in 1986. I was too young then to know him well. He was a quiet man. My grandmother was the vivacious one. As if she took care of their social obligations so he didn’t have to. When I’d be on her lap slurping half-melted ice cream watching the Muppets, he’d be in the chair adjacent to us with a smile.
The image above is a photo of a large painting I remember from the hallway of their house. It was a large ship on the ocean, leaning, on fire. I never asked about that picture and I never knew what it meant until my dad told me the story when I was an adult.
“Your grandpa was a POW in World War II,” my dad said, “held by the Japanese for 3 years.”
He briefly described the U.S.S. Houston, that it was sunk and that my grandpa was taken prisoner. All this happened before my dad was born and he said grandpa never talked about it. When grandpa died, my dad took possession of a scrapbook and some VHS tapes. One that described what happened to the Houston and another about the POW experience. That scrapbook is now part of the University of Houston’s Cruiser Houston Collection.
The first video was like any other military documentary. It focused on the ship and the battle it was in. A series of facts The other one, though, took my breath away. It showed what the POWs endured, what they survived. I cried most of the way through it. What those men lived through was indescribable. It put my grandpa’s introversion in context and made me respect him even more.
Those who survived when the Houston sank on February 28, 1942 were lost for the entirety of the war. So much was going on during World War II, including the nation’s intense focus on Pearl Harbor just two months before, that the Houston just kind of faded into history. In his book, James D. Hornfischer says that even major documentaries and historical accounts of the war in the Pacific don’t mention the Houston.
The men of the Houston were part of the international group of prisoners that built the bridge on the River Kwai - you’ve heard of the movie, but most didn’t know that Americans were in that POW group. The camps were horrible and these men suffered physical torture, starvation, disease, forced labor while starving, and psychological torture. If you want to know the real story, not the Hollywood version of the “Burma-Thailand Death Railway,” James D. Hornfischer wrote all about it in Ship of Ghosts.
“The Houston carried 1,168 men into the imperiled waters of the Dutch East Indies at the start of the war. Just 291 of them returned home. In the end, when the puzzle of their fate was at last solved, the euphoric rush of victory swept their tale into the dustbin of dim remembrance. The story of the Houston got lost in a blizzard of ticker tape.”
Ship of Ghosts by James D. Hornfischer
In my quest to understand what my grandpa went through, I read that book. I cried some more. My grandpa is not mentioned in the book, he was just a seaman first class, but the harsh truth written in those pages gave me enough to imagine what he went through. He was barely 18 years old.
What struck me even more was that after the war, my grandpa stayed in the Navy. In fact, he worked as a recruiter for awhile, fought in the Korean War, and eventually worked in Japan as a liaison officer. I’ll say that again.
After being tortured for three years by the Japanese military, my grandpa worked WITH the Japanese as a liaison officer later in his military career!
My dad told me that my grandpa got intestinal parasites in the camps that never went away. Those parasites eventually killed him at age 64. While my grandpa was working in Japan, the bugs in his belly were slowly killing him.
That takes an immensity of character that I have a hard time internalizing. I wish I could speak with him now, to ask him about that painting in his hallway. To ask him why he displayed the Houston on fire, sinking. To ask if he was quiet because he was in pain all the time.
The tenacity and perseverance of the men who survived the Japanese POW camps, or any prisoner of war camp leaves me with an intense humility.
These are the voices that need to be heard.
The men, the women, the families who sacrifice their own wants and desires for a greater purpose, to serve in our military, knowing that they could die doing so. I sit here and wonder whether the people making decisions about going to war ever read or listen to what it’s like to be in war, to watch people die in war. I know some do, but I feel like it should be required.
If they did, would they make different decisions?
The other night, I listened to Tucker Carlson interview Shawn Ryan. During that interview, Shawn said he was one of the only ones to interview Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews. He is the Marine Scout Sniper who was at Abbey Gate when 13 service members were needlessly killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and then went to testify to Congress to tell his story about what it was like over there. Shawn told Tucker that Tyler said Congress ignored him. Mainstream media ignored him.
Here was a man who lived the horror of those days, knowing he could die. Then, he could have stopped the bomber who killed those 13, but was told not to because someone in “leadership” wouldn’t let him. I’m not an expert on this story or on the military, but as an average American who understands what our military gives up to protect this country and I am livid when I hear things like this.
My grandpa and his crewmates were lost for three years because those in “leadership” didn’t keep looking. Men in wars throughout time have been lost, killed, maimed, you name it, for decades at the behest of “leadership” who then create the policies that don’t do enough to take care of them and their families. “Leadership” just points, they don’t shoot, they don’t get shot at and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of hearing about all the “voices” that need to be heard, when the absolute most important voices are ignored.
Let’s not do that anymore.
Since the first reading of Ship of Ghosts, I’ve read multiple biographies of warriors past and present. My husband is an extensive reader of them as well and when I read them, I am left with a sense of humility and appreciation for them and for those who do what I never could.
I don’t ever remember reading biographies in any class in school. I remember bland history books with names, dates, big events, and the impacts of those events, but these stories are far more necessary.
Read the voices of the past. Read about the warriors of the past. Read about the warriors defending us now. Teach your children the history of the people who lived it and teach them the values and character qualities that make good warriors because those same qualities make good citizens.
I’m reading Ship of Ghosts again. When I’m done, I’ll post about it.