The USS Houston was a personal favorite of FDR. He was a VIP passenger on her many times before World War II. Assigned to the Asiatic Station at the outbreak of the war, the Houston was part of an ill fated mixed force of Australian, British, Dutch & American (ABDA) ships defending Java and other...
That was about to change. Rumors began surfacing that a move was afoot. The Japanese guards, in their guttural pidgin, spoke of vacations in a green, mountainous land full of sunshine. On October 8, the first of several groups of prisoners was marched out of Bicycle Camp, taken down to the Tanjun...