YATES-DONALD

SURVIVED  USS HOUSTON  SINKING

BUT  DIED  IN  CAPTIVITY  AS  POW

On the evening of February 28, 1942, the heavy cruiser USS HOUSTON (CA-30) was operating off Java, Dutch East Indies, with the Australian cruiser HMAS PERTH.  The Allies believed that Sunda Strait was free of enemy vessels as the last intelligence reports indicated that Japanese warships were no closer than 50 miles.  However, a large Japanese force had secretly assembled nearby before making an invasion assault on Java.  At 11:06pm lookouts on PERTH sighted an unidentified ship which was quickly identified as a Japanese destroyer.  PERTH engaged the destroyer but rapidly a large fleet of about twenty Japanese warships appeared and surrounded the two Allied ships.  The two cruisers successfully evaded a reported nine torpedoes launched toward them but shortly thereafter both cruisers were receiving direct hits from close-range gunfire.  Shortly after midnight, HOUSTON was struck by a torpedo and began to lose headway.  Although HOUSTON’s gunners reportedly scored hits on three different destroyers and sunk a minesweeper, three more torpedoes struck HOUSTON in quick succession, she lost headway and within a few minutes rolled over and sank.  HMAS PERTH was also sunk during the battle.

Machinist Mate Third Class Donald Ralph Yates was a crew member aboard HOUSTON and was one of the 368 men of the crew of 1,061 who survived the sinking.  Unfortunately, MM3 Yates was soon captured by the Japanese and interned as a POW, first in Java and then in Burma.  Records do not indicate whether he was captured from the ocean or after reaching the shore of Java.  While in captivity, MM3 Yates was one of the many POWs forced by the Japanese to work as a slave laborer in building the infamous Thailand-Burma Railroad.  He worked on the railroad while held in 80 Kilo POW Camp in Burma where he reportedly died on August 24, 1943, due to berireri.  Following the end of World War II, the body of MM3 Donald Ralph Yates was exhumed from Burma and reburied at the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Neligh, Nebraska. 

Of the original 368 Navy and Marine Corps personnel from HOUSTON taken prisoner by the Japanese, 77 (21%) reportedly died in captivity.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)