Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [237]
CHAPTER 15 (pp. 104 to 108)
Houston approaching Bantam Bay: USS Houston, action report, 1; Charles D. Smith, narrative, 9; Winslow, The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait, 133; Bee, All Men Back, 20. Background on Krakatoa: Winchester, Krakatoa, 276–77. “Ever since the night of the 23rd…”: Hamlin, “The Houston’s Last Battles,” 26. Piper “pacing the flag deck…”: McKie, Proud Echo, 17. “They could hide a battleship out there…”: Charles, Last Man Out, 22. “I looked in the same direction as the guns…”: Bee, 20. “I found myself in my shoes before I was fully awake”: Winslow, 135. “Our first salvos appeared to strike home…”: Bee, 20. “We were desperately short of those eight-inch bricks”: Winslow, “The ‘Galloping Ghost,’” 161. “I figured we were in for trouble that night”: Stewart UNT interview, 16. “Enemy forces engaged”: USS Houston, action report, 15.
CHAPTER 16 (pp. 109 to 121)
First minutes of Battle of Sunda Strait: Brooks, interview with the author, 26–27; “Batavia Battle,” Senshi Sosho; Van Oosten, Battle of the Java Sea, maps at 56–57; Hara, Japanese Destroyer Captain, 86; Morison, History of United States Naval Operations, Vol. 3, 366. “Two mysterious ships entering the bay”: Hara, 86; “Batavia Battle,” Senshi Sosho, 483–487. “There are four to starboard…”: Payne, HMAS Perth, 74. “You could see the ships just all over…” and “We were firing at any target that [we] saw…”: Gee, UNT interview, 33–34. “Momentarily, I caught a glimpse of tracers…” and “How reassuring it was to hear…”: Winslow, “The ‘Galloping Ghost,’” 161. “The largest landing yet attempted in the Southwest Pacific”: Morison, 365. Dutch reconnaissance report: Winslow, 131–132. “The fight evolved into a melee…”: USS Houston, action report, 4. Japanese attacks on Houston and Perth: “Batavia Battle,” Senshi Sosho; Tully, “Naval Alamo,” www.asiaticfleet.com/javaseaAug02.html. “The tactics were to expose the beam of one light…”: Parkin, Out of the Smoke, 251. “It sounded like somebody throwing pebbles at the ship”: Schwarz, interview with the author. “The whole ship was alive with orders…”: Parkin, 253. “This kind of fighting demands the purest form of courage…”: sailor quoted in Spector, At War at Sea, 81. “That is just what it sounded like…”: Brain, UNT interview, 37. Damage to Harukaze: Allyn D. Nevitt, “IJN Harukaze: Tabular Record of Movement,” 1998 www.combinedfleet.com; also Rough Translation 1. Houston’s hits on Mikuma: “Report of Capt. Shakao Sakiyama of Mikuma,” Senshi Sosho. “We could see the whole outline of these Japanese destroyers…”: Howard Brooks, interview with the author. “Oh Lord, sometimes you felt like you could reach out…”: John Bartz, interview with the author. “The tin cans got so close to us…”: John Wisecup, UNT interview, 18–19. USS Houston engine room operations: Robert B. Fulton to the author, Oct. 26, 2004. “We were making full power…”: Ibid. First damage to the Houston: Houston’s Sunda Strait action report (p. 6) states that it was “presumably” a torpedo to the port side; cf. George Detre, UNT interview, 30, who says it hit the starboard side; Charles D. Smith says it was “a salvo of shells.” A diagram sketched by divers who visited the wreck and catalogued its wounds (collection of Don Kehn) shows no damage consistent with a catastrophic torpedo hit on the port side. While there is a relatively small gash at the waterline on the port side directly below the number-two stack, the extent of the damage seems too limited to have been a torpedo hit and more in line with an armor-piercing shell. What damage may be in evidence on the ship’s starboard side lies buried in the silt of the Java Sea. “When the ship was underway my job was…” and other quotes by Lieutenant Fulton: Fulton to the author, Oct. 26, 2004, and Jan. 2, 2005. Damage to boilers: George Detre, UNT interview, 30–31.
CHAPTER 17 (pp. 122 to 127)
“I wanted desperately to know…”: Winslow, The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait, 136. Regarding the Navy’s view of the utility of torpedoes on cruisers: in the view of the