Ship of Ghosts by James D. Hornfischer Read Free Book Online Page A

“What did that thing say?” It said: “Japan started hostilities. Govern yourselves accordingly .” “We had hardly cleared Iloilo entrance when we heard gunfire astern of us and saw a ship aflame,” Cdr. Arthur Maher recalled. Hidden in the dark backdrop of Panay’s mountain ranges, the
Houston
avoided notice of the Japanese pilots. She joined a pair of Asiatic Fleet destroyers, the
Stewart
and the
John D. Edwards,
in escorting two fleet oilers and the old seaplane tender
Langley
out of the war zone.
    Anyone overconfident about America’s prospects against Japan might have asked why the invincible U.S. fleet was on the run. En route to Surabaya, Captain Rooks called his officers and departmentheads to the executive officer’s cabin and informed them that war had started. On December 10 more than fifty twin-engine Japanese bombers struck Cavite unopposed, burning out most of its key installations, destroying the harbor facilities, and sinking a transport ship. When Tokyo Rose came on the radio that night, she purred an optimistic report that President Roosevelt’s favorite heavy cruiser had been sunk. The men of the
Houston
were at once flattered and unnerved by the attention. Embracing their status as a priority target not only of the Japanese military but of its propagandists too, they would coin a defiant nickname for the ship: the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast.
    Their cocky optimism took a blow when the toll of the Pearl Harbor raid and the destruction of General MacArthur’s air force on Luzon were reported in dispatches. A Navy Department communiqué that arrived on December 15, typed up and posted in the mess hall, detailed the losses: the
Arizona
sunk, the
Oklahoma
capsized. The damage to the Pacific Fleet left the United States with, in Samuel Eliot Morison’s words, “a two-ocean war to wage with a less than one-ocean Navy. It was the most appalling situation America had faced since the preservation of the Union had been assured.” The crew was stunned, if unsure what it all meant for them beyond an end to fifty-cent eight-course dinners and nickel shots of whiskey in Manila’s cabarets.
    By Christmas, Wake Island had fallen. Manila, under daily air attack from Formosa, had been abandoned and declared an open city by MacArthur, whose soldiers, with the men of the Fourth Marines, would soon be bottled up on the Bataan peninsula. Singapore faced a siege. Where might the Allies finally hold the line? On New Year’s Day 1942, with Japanese amphibious forces closing in on Borneo and Celebes to the north, an American submarine entered Surabaya’s harbor in Java flying the flag of a four-star admiral. Admiral Hart disembarked weary, having made the thousand-mile journey from Cavite mostly submerged, breathing stale air. Ashore, he gathered his energies and took a train west to Batavia, headquarters of the Dutch Naval Command. It was clear to all the Allied commanders in the theater that their last stand in the southwest Pacific would be made in Java.
    The British and the Americans had formalized their joint command relationship at the end of December, at the Arcadia Conferencein Washington, where President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill endorsed a Europe-first strategy and established the Combined Chiefs of Staff to centralize American and British strategic decision making. To defend the Dutch East Indies, and ultimately Australia, a four-nation joint command, ABDACOM, was organized on January 15, combining American, British, Dutch, and Australian forces under the overall command of British Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell. Ground forces on Java included principally Dutch and Australian garrisons, about 40,000 strong, under Dutch Lt. Gen. Hein ter Poorten. ABDA’s meager and ill-supported air forces were placed under Royal Air Force Air Marshal Sir Richard Peirse. As senior naval commander in the area, Admiral Hart was named head of the naval component, formally colloquialized as