USS Houston

1942

Sunda Strait, the Ghost of the Java Coast Location: Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra · Coordinates: 5.90°S 105.92°E · Casualties: 693 · Survivors: 368 · 266 later died as POWs · Depth: 40 m · Cause: naval gunfire · torpedo — Engaged together with HMAS Perth by elements of a Japanese amphibious landing force in the Sunda Strait on the night of 28 February-1 March 1942. Outnumbered by four heavy cruisers and destroyers. Struck by at least four torpedoes and sustained gunfire. · Fate: war grave · protected · partial salvage · Type: heavy cruiser · Northampton class · Tonnage: 9,200 tons · Crew: 1061 · Flag: United States · Launched: 1929 American Northampton-class heavy cruiser, nicknamed 'The Ghost of the Java Coast' by the Japanese who kept reporting her sunk. Caught with HMAS Perth at the Sunda Strait on the night of 28 February-1 March 1942 blundering into a Japanese amphibious force. 693 dead of 1,061 aboard; Captain Albert Rooks was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor. 368 of the survivors were captured and 266 of those died as prisoners of war, many on the Sumatra railway. The Vessel USS Houston (CA-30) was a Northampton-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, commissioned at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company on 17 June 1930. She was 183 metres long, 9,200 tons standard displacement, with nine 8-inch guns in three triple turrets. She was one of the six Northampton-class heavy cruisers, the first American heavy cruiser class built to the Washington Naval Treaty's displacement limit. Her interwar service had been largely ceremonial. She had served as President Franklin Roosevelt's "Presidential yacht" on multiple occasions, carrying him on fishing trips to the Bahamas in 1934 and 1935 and on the 1938 voyage to Pearl Harbor. The association with Roosevelt had made her the best-known American warship of the 1930s; her crew enjoyed considerable prestige within the service. In the Pacific from 1940 she was assigned to the Asiatic Fleet under Admiral Thomas Hart, based at Cavite in the Philippines. The Asiatic Fleet, smaller than the Pacific Fleet, was the American forward deployment in the western Pacific against Japanese expansion. Her captain from September 1940 was Captain Albert H. Rooks, 50 years old, a 1914 Naval Academy graduate with a 27-year career. The Disaster The two Allied cruisers entered the Sunda Strait at approximately 22:30 on 28 February 1942 at 28 knots. At approximately 23:10, lookouts aboard Houston sighted the Japanese landing force at anchor at Bantam Bay, approximately 1 nautical mile to port. The Allied cruisers had blundered into the Japanese Western Attack Force: four heavy cruisers (Mogami, Mikuma, Kumano, Suzuya), one light cruiser (Natori), and fourteen destroyers, protecting a large invasion convoy. Captain Rooks and Captain Waller turned their two cruisers to engage. The subsequent Battle of Sunda Strait, fought between 23:10 on 28 February and approximately 00:45 on 1 March 1942, was the most desperate naval engagement of the Asiatic Fleet's war. Houston and Perth fired their 8-inch and 6-inch guns at every Japanese target in range, engaging simultaneously multiple heavy cruisers and destroyer squadrons. HMAS Perth was struck by four Japanese torpedoes and sunk at approximately 00:25 on 1 March 1942. Her loss did not stop Houston; Captain Rooks continued to fight his ship alone against the Japanese force. Over the following 20 minutes Houston was struck by an estimated eight torpedoes and numerous 8-inch shell hits. Captain Rooks was killed on the bridge at approximately 00:30. Houston, under the command of her executive officer Commander David W. Roberts, continued to engage until her 8-inch guns ran out of ammunition; she then fired her 5-inch secondary guns until those also ran dry. USS Houston sank at app