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By Root 1552 0

were at a former army barracks at Batavia. The media began focusing on the question of the survivors of the USS Houston and its captain. Edith Rooks seemed able to withstand it. Speaking with reporters, she never sank into despair or pity. She only ever spoke of her admiration for her husband and her pride that her son was following in the bright wake of the Rooks family naval tradition. She would circulate widely in wartime Seattle, sponsoring the launchings of new warships out at the shipyard, working with Navy Relief, and staying current with the traumas and bereavements in the network of Navy women around her. She was direct and brutally frank in discussing with her fellow war wives the pain that attended the long absences and occasional losses, confronting things no one wanted to talk about, and cleansing dark thoughts by exposing them to the light and air of forthright discussion. She was like a latter-day Unsinkable Molly Brown, steady and stalwart in the face of tragedy, headstrong as her ship began to sink. She had a rare ability to confront the worst in life without flinching and wrestle it to the ground. It was, after a fashion, a way of coping.

The War Department had duly notified the parents of soldiers in the 131st Field Artillery that their sons were missing. Drawn tight as a community in grief, they began meeting for mutual support. The battalion’s five batteries were pulled from tiny towns throughout north-central Texas. Their sons might be lost, but the families had found each other.

Sgt. Crayton Gordon’s mother wrote the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, “I know many of the boys who are now in Java and particularly do I remember Sergeants Billy Joe Mallard and Wade H. Webb, both of Hillsboro. I was closely associated with these young men of the ‘Lost Battalion.’ I know the ability of those boys and know that they can meet whatever faces them like men. I am proud of the boys and of their brave parents.” Reportedly it was a Star-Telegram writer who coined the nickname “the Lost Battalion.” It stuck fast enough and became nearly official.

Until they became un-lost, the families would make do. The mother of Frank Fujita, a sergeant with the Lost Battalion who happened to be Japanese American, bucked up her courage and wrote a letter to the Abilene Reporter News, published in October 1942.

I am proud of my two boys and their volunteer service for our wonderful USA. I am not regretting their enlistment, and since it has come to war, and of course that means fighting, I only wish I had two more to go. I have three girls—Naomi, Freda and Patricia, and myself—all to give freely in whatever way we can serve. And also Mr. Fujita, who is an alien, but through no fault of his own. He has tried several times to be naturalized, but the law, of course, [says] no. But he is 100% American at heart, and has been so ever since coming to this country in 1914. He is willing to be used in whatever way Uncle Sam can use him. He renounced all relations to Japan when coming to this country—even to writing to his mother. He would not teach his children the Japanese language, as he wanted them to always speak American. We are both proud to have two boys to give in defense of our country; and if they should lose their lives, it would be for a glorious cause. We would gladly do the same.

If any of the Navy company or the Texans of the Lost Battalion ever took their families for granted, if they ever assumed that the good meals they had enjoyed and the hopes they had nourished had been the natural result of their industry, foresight, and clean living, Bicycle Camp was there to set them straight. They escaped by talking about the convertibles they were going to buy, the college degrees they were going to pursue, the farms they would inherit and run. There was little talk of girlfriends. As hunger and disease got to them, thoughts of the fairer sex faded from the picture. When they slept, aromas from imaginary kitchens seasoned their dreams. Awake, they brainstormed menus, recited lists of ice cream flavors, made a competition of waxing