- [Narrator] On June 17th, 1930
USS Houston was commissioned.
Named for the city of Houston, Texas
she served in the Pacific
as the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet,
protecting American interests when war
broke out between China and Japan in 1932.
(guns firing)
After service in the Asiatic Fleet she became part
of the scouting force making several special cruises.
^- The period between when she came back to the states
^in '32 I believe it was, she was used as a flagship
for the President on four different occasions.
She hosted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
on four cruises.
And he loved the ship, he really loved the ship.
He loved ships in general I mean Roosevelt was
he loved the Navy.
- [Narrator] On July 1st, 1934
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
came onboard in Annapolis, Maryland.
She would later become Roosevelt's favorite ship,
transporting him to various ports
on the East and West Coasts of the United States.
^As pre-war tensions grew, Admiral Thomas Hart,
^Commander of the Asiatic Fleet dispatched the ships.
^- One week before Pearl Harbor
^we were instructed to leave Manila Bay
and cruise south toward Indonesia.
Admiral Hart and Admiral Glassford
they were flying down to Iloilo
and we stopped there and waited
for their plane to arrive.
And as soon as their plane arrived,
they gave us instructions
to leave the harbor immediately
and go south.
Well immediately when we left the harbor
Captain came on the PA system and said,
and this was about midnight,
said, "We are in a state of war.
"The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor."
(bombs exploding)
- [Narrator] On February 15th, 1942
Houston sailed with a small Allied convoy
to reinforce the garrison on Timor
fending off numerous Japanese air attacks.
The next day the Japanese attacked in full force.
Houston's antiaircraft fire
saved the convoy from destruction.
- At the very last
of the bombing
which took place of these 45 planes,
three at a time would come over
and drop bombs on the fleet.
Yeah, and drop bombs on us,
and we were able to dodge
until the very last group of planes came over.
One bomb hit our Turret Three
and knocked it out
and killed about 50 men.
We continued
to convoy ships
from Port Darwin
up to the Island of Timor.
During convoying those ships
we were attacked more than one time by Japanese bombers,
to bomb the ships,
and to bomb us.
But we were never, never hit again.
- [Narrator] February 27th, 1942
Houston along with Allied cruisers and destroyers
under the command of
^Royal Netherlands Navy Admiral Karel Doorman
encountered a Japanese naval force
^commanded by Admiral Takeo Takagi.
(turret guns firing)
Both fleets opened fire in a battle
that severely damaged and sunk Allied ships.
Doorman orders his four remaining cruisers
north to stop the invasion of Java.
Japanese torpedoes sank the two Dutch cruisers
one of which took Doorman with her.
Before losing his life, Doorman ordered
Houston and the Australian cruiser Perth to retire.
- All of the ships were either sunk
or put out of action
except the Houston
and the Australian night cruiser the HMAS Perth.
- [Narrator] On February 28th, Perth and the USS Houston
retiring as ordered came across the Japanese invasion force
with tired crews and low ammunition.
(turret guns firing)
- We had entered the straits
the Sunda Strait
and we, of course, we're all blacked out.
The Perth ship
the captain of the Perth ship was a little older
than our captain so he was in command
of our two ships.
- [Narrator] Together, Houston and Perth
engaged the Japanese.
The Perth, the first to engage the Japanese ships,
comes under heavy fire, she was gone within an hour.
- But all of a sudden about 11 o'clock the Perth
in front of us opened fire.
And she was firing at destroyers.
And, of course, immediately we found out we were
in the midst of a landing party
of a Japanese landing.
There was at least a destroyer on each side of us
for the entire time we were in there.
And when we were firing at them and they were firing at us.
(turret guns firing)
If we fired at them, we had to be either going so we
could go broadside or forward head on.
We could not be leaving the enemy
and firing a defensive fire.
So we saw,
we saw the Perth burning
and we saw her disappear.
And she had about the same percentage of survivors
that we had.
Not too many.
And then after she sank,
we lasted until
almost another 40 minutes.
- [Narrator] Houston, alone,
fought the enemy all around her
but began to lose headway after taking torpedo damage.
Shortly after midnight, the ship came to a stop
^after a bursting shell fragment killed the ship's commander,
^Captain Albert H. Rooks.
Japanese destroyers stood in closer,
machine gunning her decks.
- The damage done to our ship
was at least three if not four,
or maybe even more torpedoes on our starboard side.
Plus,
while we were firing at them,
they were firing at us surface fire.
They killed a lot of our topside personnel.
We watched our ship sink,
bow first as the big starboard list,
and the stern was high.
And it didn't last long, it was only a very few minutes
and we saw our flag still flying from the main mast.
Our battle flag which flies at night
as well as daytime.
- [Narrator] In June, 2014
divers from the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One
along with personnel from the Indonesian Navy
took part in the
Cooperation of Float Readiness Training exercise
where they surveyed the wreck.
^- So the wreck of the USS Houston was probably
^discovered some time in the late 1960s.
And the early 1970s, the US Government
was presented with the bell from the site.
And that's our first concrete piece of evidence
that we had located the target.
On behalf of the US Navy, the first survey to assess
the state of the wreck and to confirm the identity,
and the site, and the location took place in 2014.
So our first priority was to confirm
the identity of the shipwreck and the location.
And in order to do that we conducted
a series of diving exercises on the site
together with the Indonesian Navy.
And we were able to identify the length of the vessel,
different features that we could compare
to the schematics of the ship.
As well as compare damage that we see on site
with damage in the final damage report
following the engagement.
And all those pieces together led us to believe
that this is the wreck of USS Houston.
- [Narrator] Nicknamed
the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast,
USS Houston and most of here crew were lost,
but her legacy lives on.
(soulful trumpet music)