Brief Memoir of My Experiences in WWII

Including the Sinking of the U.S.S Houston on March 1, 1942

 

By Chief Petty Officer Jordan Joseph “Joe” Garrett, USN Retired

 

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy on June 25, 1940. December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese and the United States entered World War II. At that time, I was on board the U.S.S. Houston (CA-30), a heavy cruiser, which was the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet. We were at the Cavite Naval Base near Manila in the Philippines when we heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. We pulled out of Cavite immediately and hid close to the cliffs along the shoreline so the Japanese did not see us when they bombed the Philippines a few hours later. Soon after that, we joined the ABDA (American-British-Dutch-Australian) naval force in Surabaya, Java, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). We successfully fought many battles while receiving only one major hit which disabled one of our three gun turrets and killed many men. The Battle of Java Sea is probably the most famous of these battles.

 

On February 28th, 1942, one day after we fought the Battle of the Java Sea, we were headed toward the Sunda Straits coming from Surabaya, Java. I was lying down on the topside trying to keep cool when I remember seeing a ship pass us. It was so close, you could hear people talking, but I couldn't tell what language they were speaking. The ship looked like a troop transport. Shortly after that, "General Quarters" sounded, so I went to my battle station which was in the "Central Station". Central Station is about in the middle of the ship down below the water line. It is one of the three areas in the ship from which it could be steered. It didn't take too long until both the bridge and the after steering (the other two control areas) were knocked out by shells or torpedoes, so then we took control of the ship in Central Station. Soon, the "abandon ship" order came. However, the officer in charge of Central Station said we were not going to abandon ship immediately. Rather, we would wait to allow the rest of the crew to get off and then we would get off. Eventually, I was rotated to the wheel to steer the ship - my first time to steer. Then we lost control. They said we had lost the rudder  - it was stuck - and we were going around in circles. I was trying to steer the ship when the third "abandon ship" was called. The officer in charge said, "We'd better get out of here."

 

The best I can remember, we had thirteen people there in Central Station when we all started out. When we got to the topside of the ship, everything was pretty well shot off and people were laying all around dead. Of the thirteen of us that left Central Station, I only saw one other man that made it topside - Corpsman Day. However, there was one other man that made it to prison camp so there must have been at least three of us that made it up.

 

I came up into the officers' quarters and had to crawl through wreckage to the ladder which went down to the quarter deck. At the bottom of the ladder, on the quarter deck, I saw Captain Rooks who was dead. The Chief Steward was holding him in his arms. I said, "Stew, it's time to go." He replied, "I stay with my Captain." Then about that time, another torpedo hit the ship; its concussion and the huge wall of water blew me up and sideways into the hangar deck. When I landed, the impact broke both my feet. And also, my hands got all cut up from the fall and subsequent crawling. I crawled through the wreckage in the dark toward a hole of light at the end of the hangar deck and came out on the fantail of the ship.

 

It was then that I saw the Chief Bandmaster. He said, "Garrett, I think it is time for us to start swinging." I said, "OK, Bandy, let's go." I remember seeing the Houston's flag still flying. We took off our shoes and pants, neatly folded them and laid them on the deck. Then we stepped into the water which was only about 2 or 3 feet down since the ship was listing toward us. Later I noticed that my watch stopped at 12:20 a.m. (March 1, 1942) which was when we got in the water.

 

Bandy kept on hollering "Swim fast, boy, or the ship's gonna suck you down." So we swam just as hard as we could until I was just about to give out. The ship's stern was swinging toward us, so it was hard to get away fast enough. Finally, a friend of mine from Arkansas named Callahan floated by. He was shot all to pieces. Bandy said "Take that man's life jacket 'cause he's dead and you're going to be dead before long if you don't get a life jacket." So he helped me get the life jacket off the man and I put it on.

 

Torpedoes were continuing to hit the Houston and shells were falling all around us exploding in the water. They caused us to be bounced out of the water and our insides felt like they were exploding. I think the ship went down about 15 minutes after I got the life jacket. It rolled toward us and quickly sank. The Japanese continued to shell the area of white wake for some time.

 

We (Bandy and I) swam 1 1/2 or 2 hours. It was just him and me. Japanese machine gun boats were coming around, flashing their lights and shooting at people in the water. Several times one would come real close to us and we would lay real still, face down in the water, until they passed us by. Then we'd start swimming again for the beach. Once, one came real close and stopped. We could hear them talking. We laid real still in the water and they finally went on by. There were bodies all around us, so they probably thought we were dead too.

 

We kept on swimming until finally, we came across a life raft with about 27 people in or on it. After that I never saw Bandy again. The Chaplain was on there - Chaplain Rentz was his name. He said, "Fellow, we haven't got room for everybody to get on this boat, so just grab you a line and hold on." So I grabbed hold of a rope attached to the life raft and all of us paddled. At one point, a young sailor came up to the raft and it was so overloaded that there was not anymore room for him. The Chaplain said something like, "Son, I've lived a good long life and you're just a young boy, so you take my place. I'll manage to make it." I think the boy's name was Walter Beeson. So the Chaplain gave up his rope to him and swam off into the darkness, and that was the last I ever saw of him.

 

We paddled all night trying to reach the beach and one time we got pretty close, but we never could make it. I think the current was taking us back out to sea. When it got daylight, we could see lots of debris and oil in the water. Sharks started coming around too. There were many small wooden boxes in the water too. Someone tore a board off of one and found it was full of money! It was gilders printed in Japanese. I guess they had printed it up to use when they had occupied the islands.

 

Probably around 9:00 a.m., a boat (landing craft) of Japs picked us up. The officer in charge told us "I'm not supposed to pick you people up because we're not supposed to take prisoners of war. But since you're American and I'm an American too -  I was born in Honolulu, went to school in Honolulu and consider myself American - I couldn't leave you here.” He spoke perfect English and he told us he had gone back to Japan to visit his relatives and been drafted into their Army. He gave us cigarettes, and we took our life jackets off as they told us to do. I think they were going to take us to shore. But then another boat of Japs came along with a higher ranking officer and he made them "unload us". So at gunpoint, we had to jump back in without our lifejackets. After a while (about 30 minutes to an hour, I think), another Jap boat came and picked us up and took us to the beach.

 

There were probably 40 to 50 of of us - Americans and Australians - that were on the beach. The Japs motioned and told us to get inside the ring of soldiers there so they could guard us. Probably around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., a Japanese army soldier came over and poured a big bucket of rice out on the sand and said, "Eat it if you are hungry." Most of the guys (prisoners) didn't eat it, because they didn't want to eat off the ground. An Australian said, "Yank, your trip home is in the bottom of the mess kit. You had better eat some of that." So I did, and I ate everything I could get my hands on from the Japanese from then on. That was the only food we had that day. Most days we got one cup of rice and one cup of water on the beach. We also got a little food and water for lunch on the ships we were unloading.

 

We stayed on the beach for eight days. The Japanese made us unload cargo from their big ships that were bringing supplies for the Army. I think we unloaded 8 or 9 ships. Since I had broken both my feet, they swelled up a lot and I couldn't walk. So each day my buddies would carry me to the ship and I would sit at the hold where they were bringing up cargo. My "job" was to count the supplies that were brought up. Then at the end of the day they would carry me back to our place on the beach.

 

At the end of the eight days, we were transferred to a movie theater in Serang. It took us a day to get there. I think there were close to 500 of us in that theater - Americans from the Houston and also the Army, Australians from the ship Perth, quite a few Dutch, and some British. That was a terrible place. There were no seats in the theater. It was so crowded, we had to take turns sleeping. Some would be sitting up while others were lying down. The only "sanitary facilities" was a big ditch which we dug between the building and the wire fence outside. When it would rain, all the sewage would wash into the building. We stayed there for 36 days. Each day we got one "dipper" of rice and about 1/2 cup of hot water. When I got out of that theater, I only weighed 86 pounds.

 

Then they loaded us on trucks and took us into Batavia which is now Jakarta to the "Bicycle Camp". That was what the Dutch had called it and so that's what the Japanese called it. It seemed like we had gone to heaven by comparison with the theater. Where I stayed, we had little cubicles and 4 or 5 guys slept in each one on the concrete floors. After about 2 1/2 months, Frank Campbell (a friend of mine from Dyer, TN) and I moved our beds out to the porch when some of the other guys were transferred out. Our food was primarily rice and pumpkins with occasionally some other vegetables, dried fish and some meat. We had lots of hot tea to drink. It was the best food we ever had as POWs. Another friend of mine, Charlie Green, from Texas, who was an army guy from the 131st battalion, gave me a mess kit to eat out of. I used that throughout my time as a POW and it was a great thing to have. During my time at Bicycle Camp,  I  mainly loaded and unloaded ships at the dock. Every day we were loaded into trucks and taken out to the dock. Occasionally, I worked in the town doing things like draining oil from gas stations and a big Shell Oil refinery. We were probably in Bicycle Camp about 6 months.

 

In October of 1942, we were sent to Singapore. To get there we traveled some on boats, some on trains, and some on foot. Eventually, we were taken to the Changi British Army base there. I was in Singapore for about four months. My job there was to pull up rubber trees and cut them up for wood. The work was hard and the food was very poor. We had rice and occasionally dried fish. There were American Red Cross rations stored in storehouses, but the British who controlled access to them would not allow Americans to have any. They said they had been sent to the British and that Americans were not entitled to them. So the British ate better than we did. But we did have some fun in Singapore and just about drove the Japanese crazy. Since we didn't have clothes, just G strings, a friend of mine, Frank Campbell, and I decided we wanted some pants. He and I swiped one of their tents and some needle and thread while they were sleeping and made us some pants! The Japs tried to find where their tent went, but never thought to look to see what kind of pants we were wearing.

 

In about February of 1943, we were taken up the Malay peninsula to Georgetown and put on boats to go to Moulmein, Burma. I think there were four boatloads of prisoners - mostly Dutch, Australians and Americans - along with a lot of Japanese soldiers. There were also two gunboats escorting the convoy. A day or two out of Georgetown, American PBY planes flew over and dropped bombs on us. The other three ships were sunk. The ship I was on was hit right in the middle of the ship and I was told it killed 126 Japanese soldiers. Americans were in the bow, Dutch were aft and the Japanese were in the middle. I was topside peeling potatoes with one other American and we were only about four feet away from where the bomb hit. It went down below and exploded. The deck buckled up under me and I was black and blue for several days after that. It blew a hole in the side of the ship and it started listing. They had all of us get over on one side of the ship and they made a bucket brigade and we started baling water out. We did that all night and until we got to Moulmein about 2:00 p.m. the next afternoon.

 

They took us Americans to a prison where there were Burmese prisoners (criminals) and also lepers. The criminals and lepers all had leg chains and at night they were awakened every hour and made to turn over. You could hear the chains rattle. We POWs were in one barracks and the criminals and lepers were in the next one. There was a gallows just a little beyond the end of our barracks and the Japanese said they would use it on anyone who tried to escape. Most of us stayed there about two weeks.

 

Then in March of 1943 our grueling experience of working on the Burma/Siam Railroad (the "death" railroad) began. They took some of the Americans immediately up to the 18-kilo camp to get it ready. The rest of us marched up there. It was at the 18-kilo camp that we had our first Korean guards. They were like heathens, uncivilized, and very cruel. We worked up almost to the 80-kilo camp and then we were moved to it. Then we worked almost up to the 85-kilo camp and then moved there. Then they moved all the men who were unable to work back to the 80-kilo camp. It was sort of the death camp where they took you to die. They gave them almost nothing to eat. Men were dying so fast that they had a hard time having enough people to bury them. After the 85-kilo camp, we worked almost up to the 100-kilo camp and then moved there. When we had worked almost up to the 105-kilo camp, we moved there. I was at that camp when the railroad was finished which was about March, 1944. After the railroad was finished, I stayed at the 105-kilo camp for a while. My job was cutting wood from the jungle for the Japanese trains.

 

The British worked the other way (toward us) and at about the 107-kilo camp about 7000 men died from cholera except about 50 that they told to go back to Bangkok. So those British men started marching and only two made it back to the camp near the bridge on the River Kwai. One of them died there. The other one survived and eventually came back to Calcutta with me on the plane.

 

Soon after the railroad was finished, they carried a few of us (about 19 Americans) to a camp near the River Kwai and we worked with many British repairing the bridge after allied bombing runs damaged it.  I think we stayed there until about July, 1944. I got a bad case of malaria there and while I had malaria, we were sent down into Malaya to build two airstrips. I was so sick, I don't remember much about the march. All of us Americans went from the bridge down to Malaya. We were stationed in a small camp with about 4 barracks made out of bamboo on a 160-acre banana plantation. We got lots of bananas to eat in addition to our rice. There was a creek there and after we worked all day, they would march us over to the creek near where there was a camp for Buddist monks. The monks would watch us take baths. We also got a monkey while there and taught him how to steal bananas.

 

In January, 1945, we finished the airstrips and were sent to the camp at Nakawn Paton, Thailand, where we stayed until about June, 1945. I did barbering both in the allied compound (along with three other men) and in the Japanese compound. I also helped my friend, Frank Campbell, make wooden legs for men who had amputations. The British were "in charge" at Nakawm Paton and it was sort of a hospital camp.

 

In June, 1945, we were sent to Bangkok for a few days and stayed right across from the Emperor's Palace on the docks where there was a warehouse. We got to take baths in the bomb craters! From Bangkok, we were sent up into French Indo-China where we built gun emplacements. One day in August, we were unexpectedly started on a march back to Bangkok. We marched all day and night and through the following day. Sometime during that night, one of the Japanese officers told one of our officers that Japan had surrendered. We were kept on the docks in Bangkok and guarded by the Japanese with guns until the American Air Force came in and took us out on about August 15, 1945.

 

They took us via Rangoon to Calcutta, India, where we were placed in the hospital. Later, I was taken to Karachi, Pakistan, for several days, and then finally on to the States in early October, 1945. Following a brief stay in St. Albans Hospital in New York, I was given a 96-day leave and I went to Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas to visit family. Following my leave, I reported into the Naval Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in January, 1946. I was married to Louise Cash on March 14, 1946, in Memphis. I reenlisted at the end of June, 1946, and served on active duty in the Navy until 1960 and then inactive duty in the Fleet Reserve until 1970.

 

 

 

Additional notes from daughter, Margaret Jo Klenk:

 

Joe Garrett was awarded both the Prisoner of War medal and the Purple Heart medal in February, 2003 - 61 years after his ship was sunk and he was wounded and captured by the Japanese. The medals were presented to Joe by retired U.S. Navy Captain Roy Cash in a formal ceremony on March 25, 2003.

 

Louise Cash Garrett, Joe’s wife of 58 years (and my mother), died of pancreatic cancer on April 4, 2003, just 10 days after he received the medals. The U.S.S. Houston was sunk on her 18th birthday, March 1, 1942.

 

 

Written February 2003