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Texan Recalls 'Galloping Ghost'B rob woooAssociated Press WriterHOUSTON lt;APi — It was shortly after midnight Feb 29, 1942, when the heavy cruiser USS Houston, out of ammunition, her number two turret wrecked fires raging uncon trolled, her commanding officer dead, sank beneath the warm Java Seas in Sunda Strait A youngster that morning near the barren West Texas town of Fort Davis, sat on a hillside and watched the mili tarv planes soaring overhead, making menu) notes of the crafts, and thinking of the battles that had been fought and were to be fought in the South Pacific during World War II The USS Houston, along with the Australian cruiser Perth, sank after sailing into a large Japanese landing force Thetwo ships refused to retreat andstayed to fight, although out numbered and outgunned The enemy lost an estimated 17ships ■_Of the 1,004 crewmen on the USS Houston, only 368 survived and were captured by the Japanese Of this group'76 died in prisoner-of war campsSam Bedford, in the ranch-lands near the Big Bend Country followed each report of the war While other youngsters checked the daily baseball sta tistics. he read the news of events happening thousands of miles away, especially the naval conflicts Many have forgotten the USS Houston and its last gallant stand in those days when the Allies seemed on the brink of defeat and destruction in theSouth Pacific v.;.'Sam Bedford, now a 42 year-old rancher near the Central Texas community of Hamilton, has remembered He knows where the USS Houston rests and he believes this is the time for a docu menUry film showing the battered hulk of the ship and revealing the stories told by survivors of that fierce battle Bedford has spent about $8,-000 of his own money on research and now is looking for additional funds to finance an exploration expedition and then a documentary effort His interest in naval warfare, sparked during his boyhood years, increased as time wentbyAfter graduation from Texas AM University, and serving inseveral jobs as an instrumentation enginner, Red-ford went to the South Pacific island of Kwajalein with the RCA Service Co During that time, he used his hobby of Scuba diving to explore for the many ships he had read about in those news accounts of major sea battles He said in a recent interview, I once led an expedition of divers to the Truk Lagoon and found a record number of seven sunken and previously unlocated Japanese ships,”Redford said, “It was some Indonesian divers who located the wreckage of the Houston in 1973. Since then I have talked to some of the survivors and it has been aimost an obsession with me to record on film the wreckage and tel) this proudhistory of a proud ship. ”Rediford said the USS Houston was known as the Galloping Ghost because the Japanese reErted it sunk so many times fore it finally went down And President Franklin D. Roosevelt fell in love with the ship and took extended cruises aboard her in 1935. 1938, and 1939Redford, with the tan of a man who has spent months in the water and with the bow leg ged walk of a man who has spent years in the saddle, said it wasn’t so unusual for a landlocked boy to have an interest in Naval history. It was just something that stuck with me Once I heard the story of the USS Houston and the battle those men waged, it was something I could never forget.”While working his land*in the rolling hills ana mesquite trees of Central Texas. Redford ad mitted he could only think ofgetting back to the Java Sea and filming that gallant ladywho went against impossible odds but fought until the end He hasn't had much luck coming up with the necessary $10,000 for an exploration, but hopes to make it this year or perhaps in 1979.”1 don’t want a thing out of this except to record on film the story of this ship The best time for diving in the Java Sea is July, August, September and October. So if I don’t come up with the money now. I’ll keep ontrving for next year.”Redford likes’ to point to part of an article written by retired Cmdr Walter G. Winslow, whowas assigned to the USS Houston He wrote“...By the glare of Japanesesearchlights, I saw the Houston roll slowly over to the star board, then, with her yardarms almost dipping into the sea, she paused A sudden breeze picked up the Stars and Stripes still firmly blocked on the mainmast, and waved them in one last defiant gesture. Then with a tired shudder Houston vanished beneath the Java Sea“The magnificent Houston and most of my shipmates were gone, but in the oily sea around me lay evidence the carnage wrought by the last battle Hundreds of Japanese soldiers and sailors struggled amidst the flotsam of tneir ships I smiled and repeated over and over, ‘Well Done Houston
Newspaper Details
Del Rio News Herald
Del Rio, Texas, US
Tue, Jun 20, 1978
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 09 Dec 2018
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