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Cruiser Houston Finding Aid Online

Finding Aids, USS Houston & Military History

A guide to the Cruiser Houston Collection, an archival collection of materials related to the USS Houston (CA-30) and her crew, is now available online at TARO. The heavy cruiser, first launched in 1929, was named for the city and port of Houston. On March 1, 1942, the Houston was sunk by the Japanese in Sunda Strait following a fierce battle, and her surviving crew members were made prisoners of war. Most of them worked as slave labor on the Burma-Thai Railway, immortalized in the film Bridge on the River Kwai. Following the war, the survivors formed the USS Houston Survivors Association, as well as a companion organization for younger family members called The Next Generation.

The Cruiser Houston Collection contains over seventy boxes of photographs, correspondence, diaries, copies of the ship’s newsletter the Blue Bonnet, POW records, memorabilia, and much more. Some recent donations are not yet lised in the finding aid, but are also available for use. For assistance with the collection, please contact curator Julie Grob by e-mail at jgrob@uh.edu, or by phone at 713-743-9744. For information about the USS Houston Survivors Assocation and the Next Generation, please contact the organization directly by e-mail at ca30ng@aol.com or by phone at 512-989-0000.

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