A GREAT HISTORICAL NOVEL!
Ship of Ghosts by James D. Hornfischer.
Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the heavy cruiser USS Houston entered the annals of naval legend when she was lost early in the Pacific war. Her cryptic final radio message gave no hint of the odds she'd face-or of the fate of those who lived through her devastating last battle. Her survivors would soon envy the dead. They were captured and made slaves on Japan's infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, testimony from postwar Japaneses war crime tribunals and the eyewitness accounts of the Houston's survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted a testament to human valor so riveting and awe inspiring it's easy to forget that every word of it is true.
The first sentence is my favorite:
"This is the ancient history of a forgotten ship, forgotten because history is a story, because memory is fragile, and because the human mind - and thus the storyteller who write the history- generally accepts only so much sorrow before the impulse prevails to put the story on a brighter path."
I've only read to page 50 and I am captivated. The first chapter is about a battle that the ship survives through but loses a lot of casualties in. It made me swell up with tears.
"In nearby crew's quarters, men were found blown straight through the springs of their bunks. Scraps of clothing stuck in the springs were all that remained of them, identification made possible only by the stenciling on their shirt"
"Houston's two medical officers, Cdr. William A. Epstein and Lt. Clement D. Bourroughs, exhausted themselves patching up the wounded and easing the worst of them into death. 'I am convinced they were never the same again,' wrote marine 2nd Lt. Miles Barret. 'for weeks their nerves were completely shattered.' An ensign named John B. Nelson had the chore of identifying the charred corpses as they lay in makeshift state. Nelson's eyes filled with tears as he studied the remains, identifying some and guessing at the others...The carpenter's mate oversaw the crew detailed to assemble caskets from scrap lumber. Their hammers tapped and tapped, marking time throughout the night. ''War came to us in a real way. It knocked all the cockiness out of us,' said Sgt. Charley L. Pryor Jr."
"What unsettled him was not so much the corpses but their unexpected movements at sudden intervals; arms and legs twitching, rising and reaching in death's stiffening grip...'When your standing there, a young kid about eighteen years old. I was glad to see my relief at four"
I know I left out the war and bombing stuff, but this above is only the first 13 pages! And it hasn't even gotten to the sinking of the ship and the survivors being taken captured and made slaves on Japan's infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. I am only on page 50 of 431...I know I have a while to go but it such a great book so far I had to share it. I spent the first chapter with tears in my eyes and I've learned so much that I didn't know about FDR and the USS Houston and WW2.
I may not be finished with the book yet, but I recommend everyone go and buy it!
Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the heavy cruiser USS Houston entered the annals of naval legend when she was lost early in the Pacific war. Her cryptic final radio message gave no hint of the odds she'd face-or of the fate of those who lived through her devastating last battle. Her survivors would soon envy the dead. They were captured and made slaves on Japan's infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, testimony from postwar Japaneses war crime tribunals and the eyewitness accounts of the Houston's survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted a testament to human valor so riveting and awe inspiring it's easy to forget that every word of it is true.
The first sentence is my favorite:
"This is the ancient history of a forgotten ship, forgotten because history is a story, because memory is fragile, and because the human mind - and thus the storyteller who write the history- generally accepts only so much sorrow before the impulse prevails to put the story on a brighter path."
I've only read to page 50 and I am captivated. The first chapter is about a battle that the ship survives through but loses a lot of casualties in. It made me swell up with tears.
"In nearby crew's quarters, men were found blown straight through the springs of their bunks. Scraps of clothing stuck in the springs were all that remained of them, identification made possible only by the stenciling on their shirt"
"Houston's two medical officers, Cdr. William A. Epstein and Lt. Clement D. Bourroughs, exhausted themselves patching up the wounded and easing the worst of them into death. 'I am convinced they were never the same again,' wrote marine 2nd Lt. Miles Barret. 'for weeks their nerves were completely shattered.' An ensign named John B. Nelson had the chore of identifying the charred corpses as they lay in makeshift state. Nelson's eyes filled with tears as he studied the remains, identifying some and guessing at the others...The carpenter's mate oversaw the crew detailed to assemble caskets from scrap lumber. Their hammers tapped and tapped, marking time throughout the night. ''War came to us in a real way. It knocked all the cockiness out of us,' said Sgt. Charley L. Pryor Jr."
"What unsettled him was not so much the corpses but their unexpected movements at sudden intervals; arms and legs twitching, rising and reaching in death's stiffening grip...'When your standing there, a young kid about eighteen years old. I was glad to see my relief at four"
I know I left out the war and bombing stuff, but this above is only the first 13 pages! And it hasn't even gotten to the sinking of the ship and the survivors being taken captured and made slaves on Japan's infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. I am only on page 50 of 431...I know I have a while to go but it such a great book so far I had to share it. I spent the first chapter with tears in my eyes and I've learned so much that I didn't know about FDR and the USS Houston and WW2.
I may not be finished with the book yet, but I recommend everyone go and buy it!