{"id":3610,"date":"2017-07-09T22:27:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T13:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/?p=3610"},"modified":"2017-07-09T22:27:20","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T13:27:20","slug":"this-weeks-re-review-ship-of-ghosts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/this-weeks-re-review-ship-of-ghosts\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week\u2019s Re-Review \u2013 Ship of Ghosts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) I have been doing this for nearly a dozen years, and am reprinting some of the older reviews here. Books I feel are still worthwhile.\u00a0Ship of Ghosts<\/em> certainly qualifies. It was Hornfischer’s second book (after\u00a0Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors<\/em>) and in my opinion, still his best. It may be due to my own fascination with the cruiser\u00a0Houston<\/em> (my own book on the\u00a0Houston – The Cruiser Houston<\/em> – appears this year on November 6, 2017), but rather I think it is due to Hornfischer’s excellent writing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ghosts\u2019 a retelling of Houston<\/em>‘s battle<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Mark Lardas<\/strong>
\nThe Daily News<\/p>\n

Published December 3, 2006<\/p>\n

\u201cShip of Ghosts\u201d by James D. Hornfischer, Bantam Books, 2006, $26. 530 pages.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

James D. Hornfischer writes about American sailors fighting desperate battles.<\/p>\n

His first book, \u201cThe Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors,\u201d recounted the Battle of Samar. A U.S. Navy escort group \u2014 destroyers and destroyer escorts protecting a group of escort carriers \u2014 battled the Imperial Japanese Navy.<\/p>\n

The Japanese had the battleship Yamato<\/em> and numerous other battleships and heavy cruisers. Against the odds, the Americans drove off the Japanese.<\/p>\n

In \u201cShip of Ghosts<\/a>,\u201d Hornfischer recounts an even more desperate struggle. It is the story of the heavy cruiser Houston<\/em>, trapped in the Far East in the opening days of the Pacific War.<\/p>\n

Hornfischer follows the cruiser from its launch, through its loss off the Sundra Strait.<\/p>\n

He follows the surviving crewmembers through a four-year struggle to stay alive while guests of the Emperor.<\/p>\n

The book is a tribute to human endurance: the endurance of those who survived four years of abuse as prisoners and the endurance of their families. They spent the war not knowing whether their loved one was alive or dead \u2014 only that they were missing.<\/p>\n

Hornfischer frames this personal story in the context of the greater war. He also shows how the loss of the Houston<\/em> impinged upon the American society. The city of Houston lobbied hard in the 1920s to get a cruiser named for the city, and adopted the cruiser while it was in commission.<\/p>\n

After the ship was lost, the city reacted. Houstonians raised money to build a new Houston, and sponsored a drive to enlist 1,000 men from Houston<\/em> for the new cruiser. The city raised so much money that there was enough to pay for an aircraft carrier: the San Jacinto<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The story turns out to be a Texas tale in unexpected ways. A pilot aboard the San Jacinto<\/em> was George H. W. Bush. Besides becoming president, his later life was intertwined with both the state of Texas and city of Houston.<\/p>\n

The Houston<\/em>\u2019s crew was imprisoned with a battalion of the Texas National Guard.<\/p>\n

The Second Battalion, 131st Field Artillery was mobilized before the rest of the 36th Infantry Division. Sent to the Philippines in November 1941, it diverted to Java after Pearl Harbor, and disappeared in the fall of the Dutch East Indies.<\/p>\n

\u201cShip of Ghosts\u201d is an outstanding ship history, a gripping account of naval combat, an absorbing tale of survival, and an intensely personal \u2014 and local \u2014 story. You cannot ask much more from a book.<\/p>\n

Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, amateur historian and model-maker, lives in League City.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div>
\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) I have been doing this for nearly a dozen years, and am reprinting some of the older reviews here. Books I feel are still worthwhile.\u00a0Ship of Ghosts<\/em> certainly qualifies. It was Hornfischer’s second book (after\u00a0Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors<\/em>) and in my opinion, still his best. It may be due to my own fascination with the cruiser\u00a0Houston<\/em> (my own book on the\u00a0Houston – The Cruiser Houston<\/em> – appears this year on November 6, 2017), but rather I think it is due to Hornfischer’s excellent writing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ghosts\u2019 a retelling of Houston<\/em>‘s battle<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Mark Lardas<\/strong>
The Daily News<\/p>\n

Published … Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5645,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3610"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3612,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions\/3612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}