Ship of Ghosts by James D. Hornfischer
The epic true story of forgotten heroes
War breeds neglect and forgetfulness. Throughout history, only select stories emerge from the atrocities until those heinous acts transform into significant dates that make their way into history books. World War II was one such conflict. It raged throughout the entire planet, yet history books and documentaries focus on “the big events” creating a widescreen view of depersonalization.
History is also full of the stories of individual humans who did big things and not-so-big things to survive. Their stories remind us of the human toll of war.
“Ship of Ghosts” by James D. Hornfischer recounts the heroism and atrocities of the brave men on the U.S.S. Houston both before and after President Roosevelt’s favorite ship sank in the Sunda Strait on February 28, 1942.
Why “ghost”? Before the ship sank, it was known as the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast because the Japanese reported it sunk multiple times, including 6 times after it was sunk for real. The second reason is because its crew were forgotten for the entire war.
Keep in mind Pearl Harbor had just happened 3 months before. The Houston sunk on the 84th day of the entire war, meaning many more events happened to capture the attention of those in charge. Without real-time communications and computers, things got lost, including the knowledge of how many men survived and where they were.
Families of those on the Houston wouldn’t find out if their loved ones survived or died until 1945. The POWs in captivity didn’t even know the war ended.
Ship of Ghosts is their story.
“Eight thousand miles from home, trapped on the wrong side of the tear that Imperial Japan rent in the fabric of the Pacific Ocean’s realm, they ran a gauntlet through the war’s first eighty-four days that would have been an epic unto itself in any other time. And yet the history books scarcely report it. Any number of good histories of the Pacific war pass over the story of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet and her redoubtable flagship as if they had never existed. The classic serial documentary Victory at Sea does not mention it. Nor does the epic television series World at War. Accordingly, we know little of the exploits of the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast, of her crew’s gallantry against the guns and torpedo batteries of a superior Japanese fleet, and of the darker trial that awaited them after Java fell.”
Intense Battles
In the age of technology, it’s hard to imagine what life on a ship like the Houston was like in the age of old-fashioned analog. My grandfather was a gunnery mate on the U.S.S. Houston, a seaman first class, at age 17. He’s not mentioned in the book, but Hornfischer describes life on the ship in amazing detail, from the perspective of others who were in those gun turrets as well as those who were in command.
It reads like a novel, switching from an overview of what was going on in the battle and then honing in on individuals in different parts of the ship. The blow by blow account of the Houston’s sea battles were so detailed, a reader can feel themselves sweating and aching with the men doing the work. One doesn’t have to be knowledgeable about ships or naval operations to appreciate the dedication and skill of the men operating the Houston.
There’s a scene in the 2012 movie “Battleship” when they decide to use the U.S.S. Missouri against the aliens. The camera pans to old sailors perched on their “museum” ship. They walk out and ask Lt. Hopper, “What do you need son?” What follows is an epic montage of prepping the ship for battle accompanied by some AC/DC that shows a bit of what it took to “play with the big boys.” I get tears every time because I think of my grandfather prepping for battle.
This is how Hornfischer describes the pause on the Houston after round one of the Battle of Sunda Strait:
“Turret One had fired 261 salvos since installation, 97 just that afternoon. Turret Two had fired 264, 100 that afternoon. The life of an eight-inch gun was about 300 salvos. From the long barrels of the rifles, the liners were creeping out as much as an inch or more from the muzzle. The gun casings were so hot they could not be touched for hours. The ventilation systems in the shell decks, handling rooms, and magazines were utterly inadequate. Fighting 140-degree heat, men who didn’t lose consciousness altogether during the battle stood in three inches of melted gun grease, sweat, and urine. The violent sheering of the ship sloshed that fetid brew everywhere, into the breech trays and onto the powder cases. The mixture of human and industrial stenches crept into every compartment without a watertight seal.”
After this, they had to do it all again.
In the middle of the night, the men of the Houston watch the other ships with them go down in flames. They hear men screaming in the water, begging for help, yet they have to ignore the screams and fight on. Then came the call to abandon ship. Out of 1,168 men, 368 made it to shore amidst the crazy currents of the ocean, Japanese shooting survivors, and extreme hunger.
That was just the beginning.
Land of Imprisonment
The survivors of the Battle of Sunda Strait included Americans, British, Australians, and Dutch sailors. They all landed in different places and Hornfischer takes the reader on multiple journeys taken by those who became prisoners of war, imprisoned in various camps by the Japanese. Again, he gives the bird’s eye view of what was happening in the world and the region, but focuses in on the experiences of individuals and small groups of men. All of their stories are harrowing and worthy of a Hollywood movie, but the one movie made about them was wrong.
My grandfather helped build “The Bridge on the River Kwai” or as more accurately known, the Burma-Thailand Death Railway. I’ll let the author explain:
“In David Lean’s 1957 film, the bridge—and by implication the entire railroad—was a showpiece of British pride and know-how. It was premised on the idea that the British had engineering expertise far beyond that of the Japanese. Ripe with Western chauvinism, the film depicted the British as the teachers and contractors to the unsophisticated enemy. The reality was just the opposite. The real railway was driven from end to end by Japanese ambition and know-how. Though Japan lacked the machinery to construct it by state of-the-art means, there was no lack of design expertise—or ruthless will. Japan would do with cold dispatch what Western colonialists had deemed impracticable.”
Not only was the premise of the movie wrong, but survivors of those prisoner of war camps were miffed that this movie took attention away from the rest of the death railway and the atrocities that occurred. These prisoners were slaves to the Japanese. They walked and worked barefoot, their only clothing was what they emerged with from the sea.
Beaten and starved along the way, any man who got sick or injured was left to die in the jungle. There was no medicine. Disease was rampant and included pellagra, dysentery, malaria, beri-beri, and tropical ulcers. Any break in the skin from something as little as a scratch resulted in necrotizing flesh. Amputations were sometimes necessary. No anesthesia, medicine, no hospitals, no relief. Men who couldn’t work were left to die.
I’ve chosen not to include photos of the POW camps because they are disturbing, but you can go to this LINK of the USS Houston website and see for yourself. Hornfischer’s hardcopy book also includes photos.
Posttraumatic Stress Before it was PTSD
The story doesn’t end when the sailors returned home in late 1945. The government asked them to relive their trauma through lengthy debriefs and then sent them on their way. No orientation, no readjustment, no help, no therapy. It didn’t exist at the time, nor did any kind of PTSD diagnosis. They received little, if any, compensation or reparations and even if they did, the red tape associated with accessing it made it less than worth it.
Hornfischer let the survivors talk about what it was like adjusting to life outside of the prison camps. One explained how awkward “the little amenities people in civilized circles took for granted” like using a fork, zipping pants, using a toilet, eating food, being around women, planning for anything more than the immediate present. They’d been away from civilization for four years and getting back into it was traumatic. Some got together to talk about their experiences while others shut down about it completely.
I believe my grandfather was in the shut down completely category. He died from complications resulting from the parasites that infiltrated his body while building the Burma-Thailand Death Railway.
Reflection
This short review does not do justice to the author or the history he recounts. The story of the U.S.S. Houston is an epic and Hornfischer writes in a way that brings history to life, by humanizing the experiences of men who endured the unthinkable. It reads like a novel for those inexperienced in military life but provides enough detail for those who are. He let the survivors speak for themselves, but also noted that most were deceased when he wrote the book and I imagine they all are now.
After reading it for at least the third time, I wanted to thank Mr. Hornfischer for telling this story, but unfortunately he passed away in 2021. He did write other books which are going on my book list.
There are many lessons to take away from this book, but three have stuck with me.
Do not get your history from entertainment.
Movies can be great, but they never tell the whole story. Not to mention, the Hollywood-ization of stories can distort facts, like the Bridge on the River Kwai did with this story. A movie can inspire you to read the book and I encourage that wholeheartedly.
Some books I ended up reading after watching the movie include “We Were Soldiers,” which depicted the events written by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway in the book “We Were Soldiers Once…and Young: Ia Drang-The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam.” The movie “Unbroken” was first a book by Laura Hillenbrand called “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.” “American Sniper” was of course about Chris Kyle, and his memoir is “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History - A Navy SEAL’s Memior of War and Family.” There are countless others, but I beg you to read the books. Each book had so much more depth than a two hour movie can portray and you’ll have a better understanding of the people and the events from each one. Take the time to read the book. Have your kids read the books too. If I were a homeschooling parent, these kinds of biographies and autobiographies would play a prominent role in learning history.
War doesn’t always bring out the worst in people—sometimes there are moments of great beauty amidst the chaos.
What the men of the U.S.S. Houston endured during the war was beyond horrific, but amidst the tragedy were stories of goodness and hope. Individuals who gave their lives to save their shipmates. The chaplain who gave another sailor his life vest so that he could survive the vast ocean. The men who saved their meager rice rations and gave them to the sick left to die along the railway. Dr. Hekking, a doctor from the Dutch East Indian Colonial Army who used natural remedies throughout the tropics to heal the sick. The men, injured and sick themselves, who took the time to bury those who died in the jungle. The women who snuck food to through the fences to the camps. And when control of the camps flipped at the end of the war, the prisoners took no revenge against their captors. Some, like my grandfather, even remained in the Navy and returned to work in post-war Japan.
There is a significant disconnect between those who manage wars and those who live wars.
Throughout this book there were examples of people in leadership who made decisions that negatively affected real humans, but they were so far removed from the consequences of their actions that no one was held accountable. What strikes me again and again in these stories of war is that the people who opt for war and direct the war are not the people on the ground fighting the war, but it’s the people fighting the war that have to live with the consequences.
One example of this is story of the captain of the U.S.S. Houston, Captain Albert H. Rooks, who went down with his ship. Before the Houston even engaged in battle, he predicted the fate of the Houston based on his assessment of what was happening in the Pacific. Specifically, he told his superiors of the overwhelming forces of the Japanese and the weaknesses of the combined forces in the Pacific and wrote up a plan that made more sense given the circumstances. His writings and warnings were not heeded. As a result, men died and endured three years of torture. This happens again and again in every war throughout history and I am left to wonder when people will be held accountable for the bad decisions that ruin people’s lives. This might be a naive perspective, but I can think of many examples in modern times where people in leadership positions make decisions, people under them suffer as a result, but no one is held responsible. That’s not right.
Conclusion
Our world is full of heroes that no one hears about. In a culture of everyone wanting their voice heard, there are countless others who behave bravely and courageously without those demands. There was an entire generation of men (and women) like my grandfather who had grit before resilience was a trendy term. Many books have been written about them, and I pray more people read those books and learn their stories.
I salute these heroes past and present.