USS Houston (CA-30)

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Houston
USS Houston (CA-30) off San Diego in October 1935.jpg
Ship data
flag United StatesUnited States (national flag) United States
Ship type Heavy cruiser
class Northampton- class
Shipyard Newport News Shipbuilding , Newport News
Launch September 7, 1929
Commissioning June 17, 1930
Whereabouts Sunk on March 1, 1942
Ship dimensions and crew
length
182.9 m ( Lüa )
width 20.1 m
Draft Max. 5.0 m
displacement Standard : 9,050 ts
 
crew 621 men
Machine system
machine 8 boiler
4 Parsons - transmission turbines
Machine
performance
107,000 PS (78,698 kW)
Top
speed
32.5 kn (60 km / h)
propeller 4th
Armament
Armor

The USS Houston was originally built as a light cruiser by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Newport News . She belonged to the Northampton class . It was assigned the hull number CL-30. After its commissioning in June 1930, a year later it was reclassified as a heavy cruiser , and it was given the new hull number CA-30.

history

Construction, baptism and commissioning

In January 1927, in Houston , Texas , a number of city honors formed the Cruiser Houston Committee to induce the United States Navy to name a new cruiser after the city. The many activities also included an intensive letter and telegram campaign in which the residents wrote to the naval secretary and made their request. As a result of the many letters, the Navy officially announced on September 7, 1927 that the next cruiser would be named Houston .

The Houston keel was laid on May 1, 1928. The ship was about 182 meters long and had a displacement of 9,300  tons . Its maximum speed was 32.5  knots with a crew of 621 sailors. The armament consisted of nine guns of 20.3 cm (8 inches ) caliber  , which were installed in three triplet turrets, two of them in front and one on the quarterdeck. In addition, initially four, later eight 12.7-cm anti-aircraft guns and a few machine guns of the 2.8 cm caliber and machine guns of the 12.7 mm (0.5 inch) caliber were on board. Two aircraft catapults and two hangars for a total of four seaplanes , which were located amidships between the funnels, completed the equipment of the Houston .

Elizabeth Holcombe , daughter of Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe and sponsor of the construction, christened the Houston with water from the Canal on September 7, 1929 under the gaze of 2,000 spectators from Texas and those of the then Governor of Virginia, Harry F. Byrd Newport News . This happened because the prohibition era also ship christenings with alcohol were inadmissible. The subsequent launch went smoothly.

After its completion, the US Navy put the Houston into service on June 17, 1930. On board there were small shops, a hairdresser , a post office , as well as a telephone or telegraph office . Generators connected to the turbines ensured that the energy supply was maintained , and drinking water was generated from seawater by a water treatment plant .

The sailors published the on-board newspaper "The Blue Bonnet", which informed the crew of all current events on board. They also set up a baseball team, called "The Ramblers" after the old nickname of the Houston , and founded their own board band.

Calls

Her maiden voyage took the ship into the Atlantic and from there to ports in France , the Netherlands and Great Britain . On the way back, she drove into the Gulf of Mexico and visited her sponsored city of Houston.

In 1931 she was then ordered to the Pacific to be assigned as the flagship of the Asian fleet . In the same year, she drove more than 950 kilometers up the Yangtze River in China to help repair serious flood damage in the Yangtze River Valley.

On several missions in the China Sea , she strongly represented the interests of the United States in the run-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War and brought marine infantry to China. In November 1933 the transfer came to the American west coast, where it took part in many naval maneuvers in preparation for a military conflict. From September to December 1938 she was the flagship of the US fleet. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was welcomed aboard the ship on a number of occasions between 1934 and 1939.

The second mission as the flagship of the Asian fleet began in November 1940 under the command of Jesse Barrett Oldendorf . The Houston went to the Philippines . A few days after the start of the Pacific War by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the entire fleet was dispatched to more southern waters on the afternoon of December 8, 1941, as the danger situation in the Philippines appeared too high due to the Japanese invasion that had begun . The most serious problem with the Houston  - now under the command of Captain Albert H. Rooks  - was the failed radar system , which was supposed to be repaired in the Cavite port of Manila .

The Houston in Manila Bay

Since the Houston was the largest US ship in the region, she was inevitably involved in the Japanese East India Offensive. This is also where she got her nickname Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast . On February 4, 1942, in the battle of the Strait of Makassar, the aft main turret was put out of action by an enemy bomb hit. The damage could not be repaired either with on-board means or by the shipyards available in the region, so that only six of the nine 203 mm guns were still operational. The ship remained in the combat zone and participated on February 27 in the ABDA fleet , which fought the battle in the Java Sea with Japanese ships .

When the situation became hopeless towards the end of the battle, the Houston and the Australian light cruiser Perth ran towards Batavia . They were sunk the following day during the battle in the Sunda Strait by the Japanese cruisers Mogami and Mikuma , which were protecting the Japanese landing forces on Java .

wreck

The wreck of the Houston was examined by US Navy divers on August 18, 2014 in Banten Bay , Indonesia . It was confirmed once again that it was the Houston and it turned out that strangers had already dismantled parts of the ship and recovered ammunition from the rubble in the past.

Commanding officers

Captain Jesse Bishop Gay June 17, 1930 to November 18, 1930
Captain Robert Alden Dawes November 18, 1930 to January 3, 1933
Captain William Baggaley January 3, 1933 to June 5, 1934
Rear Admiral Walter Browne Woodson June 5, 1934 to June 25, 1935
Captain Guy Evans Baker June 25, 1935 to July 16, 1937
Captain George Nathan Barker July 16, 1937 to May 24, 1939
Captain Francis Cogswell May 24, 1939 to September 22, 1939
Admiral Jesse Barrett Oldendorf September 22, 1939 to August 30, 1941
Captain Albert Harold Rooks August 30, 1941 to March 1, 1942

literature

  • WG Winslow: The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait. Naval Institute Press, 1994, ISBN 1-55750-927-1 .
  • Duane Schultz: The Last Battle Station: The Saga of the USS Houston. St. Martin's Press, 1986, ISBN 0-312-90222-0 .
  • Heber A Holbrook: USS Houston: the last flagship of the Asiatic Fleet (Pacific). Pacific Ship and Shore, 1981.
  • Walter G. Winslow: Ghost of the Java Coast: (Saga of the USS Houston). Laura Bks, 1974, ISBN 0-914042-00-9 .

Web links

Commons : USS Houston  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. 2014 USS Houston (CA-30) DIVEX Interim Assessment (07 25 2014) in section "I.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY" (English)
  2. Nicole Charky: Navy Identifies sunken World War II vessel as cruiser USS Houston. LA Times dated Aug. 19, 2014, viewed Aug. 19, 2014
  3. List from NavSource Online (accessed June 2, 2012)

Coordinates: 6 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  S , 106 ° 12 ′ 0 ″  E