Ship of Ghosts
Authors: James D. Hornfischer
Acclaim for James D. Hornfischer and
SHIP OF GHOSTS
A U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings
Notable Book of 2006
“Powerful… Another ‘you are there’ tale that has earned Hornfischer a reputation as one of naval history’s heavy hitters.”
—U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings
“This captivating saga chronicles… a grim tale that was then a mystery and largely untold in historical accounts of WWII naval warfare in the Pacific… With vivid and visceral descriptions of the chaos and valor onboard the doomed
Houston
… the author penetrates the thoughts and fears of adrenaline-pumped sailors in the heat of combat… Hornfischer masterfully shapes the narrative … into an unforgettable epic of human endurance.”
—
USA Today
“It’s hard to imagine any ship in the history of the U.S. Navy that combined such a celebrated beginning with such a wrenching ending as the USS
Houston
. And it’s hard to imagine anyone telling the story of the
Houston
and its crew more meticulously or engagingly than James D. Hornfischer… Hornfischer’s description of the battle is riveting and rich in its graphic detail… So great is the drama of the
Houston
and its survivors that this story seems to tell itself, although it’s really the product of meticulous research and Hornfischer’s knowledge of his subject. We’re left in awe that anyone survived their ordeal, and humbled to meet the men who did.”
—
Rocky Mountain News
“As he did in
Last Stand
, Hornfischer renders [the] desperate battle in a riveting and dramatic fashion … Moving and powerful… Tightly written and structured, detailed and immaculately researched,
Ship of Ghosts
is a title that most World War II history buffs will not want to miss.”
—
Flint Journal
“Hornfischer exhaustively details the full story: the visceral terror of a naval battle, savage treatment by Japanese captors, and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
—
Entertainment Weekly
(An EW Pick—Grade: A)
“Hornfischer (who wrote the equally powerful
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
) follows these survivors without ever missing a beat, proving himself to be one of our greatest WWII historians.”
—
Book-of-the-Month Club News
“The author of
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
gives us another excellent volume of World War II naval history… Drawing on the survivors’ accounts and extensive published resources, Hornfischer has painted a compelling picture of one of the most gallant ships and one of the grimmest campaigns in American naval history. He has a positive genius for depicting the surface-warfare sailor in a tight spot. May he write long and give them more memorials.”
—
Booklist
(starred review)
“Chronicles a nearly forgotten chapter of U.S. naval history with a gripping intensity that should satisfy salty dogs and landlubbers… Hornfischer has emerged as a major World War II maritime historian by weaving together the human and strategic threads of a fascinating tale. What kind of yarn is
Ship of Ghosts
? Put Stephen Ambrose aboard the cruiser… Next bring along Patrick O’Brien for nautical detail and high-seas drama. Then factor in Joseph Conrad for tales of men under stress in exotic climes.”
—
Metro West Daily News
“For Hornfischer … the tale of the
Houston
and the Death Railway is all the more poignant because it is relatively unsung, at least compared to such well-documented horrors as the Bataan Death March… The scenes he paints are riveting.”
—
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A gripping narrative … Harrowing and frank, this story of a gritty band of men—starved, isolated and working under excruciating conditions—reflects the triumph of will over adversity … [a] long-overdue saga of the famous ship.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Engrossing … a superb evocation of naval combat … a gripping, well-told memorial to Greatest Generation martyrdom.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“
Ship of Ghosts
would be an unforgettable book if only for its brilliantly wrought account of the massive, chaotic sea battle that destroyed the USS
Houston
. But that is only the beginning of a story that grows more harrowing with every chapter, and that finally leaves the reader amazed at what human beings are capable of achieving and enduring.”
—Stephen Harrigan, author of
Challenger Park
and
The Gates of the Alamo
“On sea and on land, these intrepid sailors endured enough for a thousand lifetimes. In this riveting account, Hornfischer carefully reconstructs a story none of us should be allowed to forget.”
—Hampton Sides, author of
Blood and Thunder
and
Ghost Soldiers
“Hornfischer has produced another meticulously researched naval history page-turner in
Ship of Ghosts
. He manages to fuse powerful human stories into the great flow of historical events with a singular storytelling talent.”
—John F. Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy, author of
On Seas of Glory
“Hornfischer has done it again. His narrative is fine-tuned and always compelling but where he truly excels is in his evocative, often lyrical descriptions of combat at sea. Those who enjoyed his previous bestseller will love
Ship of Ghosts
—military history at its finest.”
—Alex Kershaw, author of
The Few
“Masterly … [the] descriptions of the huge and terrifying naval engagements are as overwhelming a stretch of historical writing as I have ever come across… Beautifully written and heart-gripping.”
—Adam Nicolson, author of
God’s Secretaries
“Recounts perhaps the most devastating untold saga of World War II in piercing detail.”
—Donovan Webster, author of
The Burma Road
“Hornfischer has hit another home run.”
—Paul Stillwell, former director, History Division, U.S. Naval Institute; author of
Battleship Arizona
“Excellent … Hornfischer details amazing stories of survival and horrifying stories of death. He tells of the trials that brought punishment to the perpetrators and of the difficulties survivors had in adapting to freedom.”
—
San Antonio Express-News
“Finally … a new book about the
Houston,
her crew, and their ‘lost years’ has reached stores. James D. Hornfischer’s
Ship of Ghosts
accomplishes what its predecessors never quite did.”
—
America in WWII
“Hornfischer rivets the reader’s attention… The crew relate, through Hornfischer’s superb narrative style, their individual accounts in a seamless tale of bravery and uncommon personal fortitude… Jim Hornfischer has crafted a terrific read and every U.S. Navy sailor and every WWII history buff will want to read
Ship of Ghosts.
”
—
Tin Can Sailor
“James D. Hornfischer is … a first-rate World War II naval historian… [His] book is ultimately an evocative testament to the human spirit.”
—
Austin Monthly
“The author … brings to life another little-known chapter of World War II in the Pacific … I highly recommend
Ship of Ghosts.
While it is historical, its fast and exciting pace reminds me of
The Sand Pebbles,
one of my favorite novels.”
—Col. Gordon W. Keiser, USMC (ret.), U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings
“Certain to appeal to many types of readers—scholars, navy buffs, armchair sailors and military historians among them.”
—Associated Press
ALSO BY JAMES D. HORNFISCHER
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors:
The Extraordinary World War II Story of
the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour
for Sharon
The day will come when even this ordeal
will be a sweet thing to remember.
—
Virgil, the aeneid
Four.
In the Jungle of the Kwai
Men of the USS
Houston
(CA-30) and the Lost Battalion Killed in Action or Died in Captivity, 1942–1945
T
his is the ancient history of a forgotten ship, forgotten because history is story, because memory is fragile, and because the human mind—and thus the storytellers who write the history—generally accepts only so much sorrow before the impulse prevails to put the story on a brighter path. The Pacific war’s desperate days were dark enough to obscure one of the great naval epics of this or any century. The story of the USS
Houston
(CA-30) was largely unknown even in its own time. Since then, what may have been the most trying ordeal to beset a ship’s company has lain in puzzling obscurity.
Even readers who have explored the Navy’s war against Japan in some depth are unlikely to have read much about the
Houston
’s battles and the forty-two-month ordeal that her survivors endured. The men who gave life to the legend of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite warship fought their war in isolation, hidden, it seems, behind the pall of smoke standing over the armored carcasses of Pearl Harbor. 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.
Newspapers carried sketchy reports of the
Houston
’s final action. But as the calamity of a two-ocean war engulfed America in 1942, no one could say what became of her survivors, how many there were, where they were taken, what trials they suffered, when if ever they might return home. The
Houston
’s survivors, barely a third of her complement, would come to envy her dead. Captured and made slaves on one of history’s most notorious engineering projects, they were lost for the duration of World War II, enfolded in a mystery that would not be solved until America’s fleets and armies had subdued one of the most potent military machines ever set loose on the world, and freed its prisoners and slaves. Even today we know little of the staggering trials of her survivors, a seagoing band of brothers whose resilience was tested on the project that encompassed the drama depicted in David Lean’s classic film
The Bridge on the River Kwai
. Few people understand that there were Americans there. And fewer still appreciate how their spirit of resistance, defiance, and sabotage enabled them to keep their dignity, and how their conspiracies to espionage eventually conjoined with those of the OSS in Thailand during the most fraught hours of the Asian war.
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.
The surviving men of the USS
Houston
have lived and aged gracefully, seldom if ever asking for attention or demanding their due. Now they are old, and they are leaving us. They numbered sixty-five when this project began in 2003. As I write in February 2006, that number is down to forty-two. Only the ship’s hardiest representatives are left. The time is fast coming when the eyewitnesses to
World War II will be gone, and historians left with their documents and nothing more. So it is time now to remember the
Houston
and what may well be the most trying ordeal ever suffered by a single ship’s company in World War II. At the very least, we owe them some overdue thanks before it is time for them to go.
