Houston battle damage at the Subda Straits.

Hi

For anyone continplating building a Houston at the Sunda Strait, here's a list of pages in "Ship of Ghosts." for her battle damage. The Houstons #3 gunhouse was hit by a bomb from horizontal high level bombers, results where to "gut" that gunhouse making it useless for the rest of her battles. That is on page 11-12. Only miner damage was encured in the Java Sea battle. But for her last battle at the Sunda Strait that damage is reported on pages 115, 120, 121,131,132,133,136,137,138,139,142,143, and with the ship down by the bow,listing to starboard, a last torpedo hit aft on the port side page 127. A further note about that last torpedo hit, it seemed to the crew in the water that they said that last hit seemed to counterflood the ship montarily, and served to "right" the ship before she sank. That "righting" effect waved her battle ensings to stir in the breeze, thus she waved her flags in difiance to her Japanese tormentors as she sank. I have not read any other books about the Houstons and Perth's last fight together eccept for an old book written in the late 50's, early 60's. I won't say this is a diffinitive work of the Houstons last days, and the plite of the crew in captivity. But it is very complete in detail, I recomend this book to anyone who would like to know or is also perhaps an amature naval historian. It falls in the catagory of a must read.

SteveH