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Ship of Ghosts
By:
James D. Hornfischer
(544 pages (advanced copy)
photos, maps)
Reviewer: Terry Miller
Overall
Rating: Four Stars--Highly recommended. An excellent book.
The pride of the
American Asiatic Fleet at the
outbreak of WWII was its
flagship, the USS HOUSTON
(CA-30). In Ship of Ghosts
Jim Hornfischer tells the story
of FDR's favorite ship by
humanizing each segment of the
story through first person
accounts; interviews; letters;
official documents; and lists
and details on scraps of paper,
carefully hidden during the
crew's captivity and enslavement
from Japanese guards who would
have exacted terrible
punishments for just having
them. Hornfischer rivets the
reader's attention with the
story of the battles in which
HOUSTON's after turret was lost
and then, with the Australian
cruiser HMAS PERTH, the heroic
fight against incredible odds
where both gallant ships were
finally lost. But the saga does
not end with the sinking of the
HOUSTON.
For the next
three and a half years the crew
suffers the worst indignities
and deprivations at the hands of
their captors. To the Japanese
and their Bushido Code, anyone
who surrenders is considered
worse than dead and is not to be
given any consideration. Beaten,
starved, and often brutally
murdered, the crew relate,
through Hornfischer's superb
narrative style, their
individual accounts in a
seamless tale of bravery and
uncommon personal fortitude as
they work or die building
Japan's railroad through the
disease-infested jungles of
Burma and Thailand where as many
as 400 Allied prisoners died
each day.
Coupled with
accounts of The Lost Battalion,
the Texas National Guard
battalion that was also captured
and interned with the HOUSTON
crewmembers, and some of the
other Allied prisoners, these
stories depict a level of
cruelty by the captors that
could not be believed if it
weren't so well documented.
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.
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