Sunken vessel is World War II-era USS Houston

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — Navy divers from the U.S. and Indonesia confirmed that a sunken vessel in the Java Sea is the World War II wreck of the USS Houston, a cruiser sunk by the Japanese that serves as the final resting place for about 700 sailors and Marines, officials announced Monday.

The Japanese sank the Houston during the Battle of Sunda Strait on Feb. 28, 1942. The ship carried 1,068 crewmen, but only 291 sailors and Marines survived both the attack and being prisoners of war. The Houston's commanding officer, Capt. Albert H. Rooks, posthumously received the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism.

U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Harry Harris said Monday that divers have documented evidence the watery gravesite has been disturbed.

Assessments conducted in June to determine the condition of the Houston found that hull rivets, a metal plate and unexploded ordnance were removed from the ship. There is also oil actively seeping from the hull.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140818/us--uss_houston-0d187190ac.html

[Thor_MN]

1. Interesting that they IDed the wreck. Thanks for posting.

Not sure how they came up with the 700 number. I suppose they do not know how many were pulled from the sea, so the 700 must be a total guess.

[Angleae]

5. The 700 number is original known crew minus know survivors.

[Thor_MN]

8. Sorry, that math doesn't work

Known survivors of being a POW doesn't not give the number that died as a POW. If 700 WERE accurate we would know that 77 died as POWs. But since we don't know (from the article) how many died as POWs, we don't know how many were pulled from the water, therefore we don't know how many have a "final resting place" as the wreck. "About" 700 is their guess.

[Angleae]

11. The Japanese navy probably has records of how many were taken prisoner.

[Thor_MN]

12. Do you have a link to them?

[melm00se]

13. 375 USS Houston survivors

were interned as Japanese POWs, 82 USS Houston survivors died in POW camps.

Link

[AngryAmish]

15. They may or may not.

Japan treated POWs very badly. Red Cross might have records but most POWs were hidden, put to work.

War is hell. Not everything can be accounted for.

[Angleae]

19. The japanese army behaved very badly. The navy usually behaved themselves.

Except some navy pilots. Unfortunately, the army ran the POW camps.

[groundloop]

2. unexploded ordnance removed from the ship.....

That sounds kind of scary.

[DinahMoeHum]

3. There apparently has been illegal salvaging. . .aka "grave-robbing"

. . .going on in those waters for some time.

Same thing has been happening with the Australian ship HMAS Perth nearby.

http://www.usshouston.org/news.html

http://www.stripes.com/news/purloined-trumpet-tells-story-of-life-on-uss-houston-1.288864

[SoapBox]

4. wow...

[7962]

6. SEVEN HUNDRED. At one time. Shows how different war was then. RIP.

The difference now is more frequent combat than back then.

[Thor_MN]

9. It took a much bigger crew.

Improvements in power, automation and number crunching let fewer people run a ship.

[Cali_Democrat]

10. I was reading about WW2 recently

Death figures in single incidents were crazy. Over 2000 German sailors died when one of their battleships was sunk by the British navy. Also, almost 10000 German civilians died when a single ship carrying refugees was sunk by the Soviets in 1945. The biggest loss of life in a single sinking.

Crazy stuff.

[melm00se]

14. Total war creates frightful casualty figures

WWI

Battle of the Somme >1,200,000 dead and wounded (the British suffered 60,000 in one day)
Battle of Verdun ~900,000 casualties


WWII

Battle of Stalingrad >1,300,000
Battle of Berlin ~1,200,000


Worst Naval losses

Wilhelm Gustloff 9,000 to 10,000 lost (including an estimated 5,000 children)
Goya ~7,000 lost
Junyo Maru ~5,000 lost
Toyama Maru ~5,000 lost

the list goes on and on.

[Lurks Often]

16. Not sure where you got the idea

that combat is more frequent now, then back then. It just makes the news more.

There has always been at least one war or civil war going on since at least 1750 and the centuries prior to 1750 weren't exactly peaceful.

[7962]

17. I should've better explained what I meant by that;

I mean that soldiers in war today are "in combat" much more often than in the past wars. In WW2 you could go weeks before moving against the enemy. In Iraq or Afghanistan you could see action on a weekly basis

[Lurks Often]

18. It depends

In WWII, especially in Europe, units would be rotated back from the lines for some time, usually 2-4 weeks to rest and refit and take replacements while another unit replaced them in the front lines. In an active part of the front, going weeks without enemy contact would be very rare.

In Iraq & Afghanistan, contact MIGHT be more frequent*, but on a much smaller scale and lower intensity (except for the people actually being shot at, of course). In a counter-insurgency conflict, which is what Afghanistan currently is, action tends to be at the squad or platoon level, instead of the battalion/divisional level of a major conventional conflict.

Comparing our counter-insurgency efforts in the later stages of Iraq and Afghanistan to wWII isn't really accurate or fair to those who served or are serving in those conflicts.

[Eleanors38]

7. After that battle had begun, the allied commanders

must have known they were on an "expendable" mission, given the overwhelming Japanese invasion force. One of Houston's 3 main turrets was out of commission from a previous battle as well. Complement was just over 1,000. The ship capsized after taking 4 torpedoes.