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Date of Passing Feb 24, 2002
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Herbert Houck, the World War II naval ace who directed the final attack on the battleship Yamato, the pride of the Japanese Navy, in the fighting for Okinawa, died on February 24, 2002, in Cape Coral, Florida. He was 86.
Five days after American troops began landing on Okinawa, and on the day that kamikaze planes began crashing into American ships supporting the invasion, the Yamato was about to be hurled into the climactic battle of the Pacific conflict on what amounted to a suicide mission of its own.
On the afternoon of April 6, 1945, the Yamato headed toward Okinawa from its port at Kure, Japan, some 600 miles away. The Yamato, commissioned nine days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and its sister ship, the Musashi, weighing about 72,000 tons each at full load, were by far the largest battleships ever built.
But aircraft carriers, not battleships, proved decisive in the Pacific. The Musashi had been sunk the previous October. The Yamato, while seeing action in the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, had been used sparingly. Nonetheless, it was fitted with armor deemed virtually impenetrable, and it bristled with nine guns that could hurl 3,200-pound armor- piercing shells, the largest battleships guns ever to go to sea. It was to cross the East China Sea, arrive off Okinawa and fire upon American ships and troops battling for the island.
But the Japanese did not provide air cover for the Yamato, and it was believed to have carried only enough fuel for a one-way trip.
An American submarine and a scout plane spotted the battleship, and waves of fighters began attacking it 200 miles north of Okinawa in the early afternoon of April 7. The battleship took numerous hits from aerial-launched torpedoes and bombs, and it listed to portside. But it was still floating when Lieutenant Commander Houck, in command of more than 40 planes on the carrier Yorktown, went aloft in his Hellcat fighter.
His engines were balky, and he almost turned back, but soon he was over the Yamato with his torpedo planes.
He ordered that they adjust the depth settings for their torpedoes to ensure that they struck the huge Yamato low enough to avoid her armor, and six planes swooped down. Several torpedoes struck the Yamato. It turned over, and a huge explosion hurled its sailors into the sea or killed them outright as Lieutenant Commander Houck took photographs with a wing camera.
"It made a mighty big bang," he remembered. "Smoke went up. The fireball was about 1,000 feet high."
The Yamato sank with the loss of nearly 2,500 crew members, fewer than 300 having been rescued; a light cruiser and four of the eight destroyers accompanying it were also sunk. This was essentially the end of the Japanese Navy.
Herbert Norman Houck, a native of Minnesota, joined the Navy in 1936 after attending the University of Minnesota for three years. He flew in the lead wave of the first mass strike by carrier-based aircraft on Tokyo, on Feb. 16, 1945, and by war's end was a three-time winner of the Navy Cross, the service's highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor. He shot down six Japanese planes.
He was promoted to captain in 1956, served as commander of the aircraft carrier Shangri-La in 1960 and '61, and retired in 1968.
He is survived by his wife, Jeannette; a son, Robert, of Sunrise, Fla.; two daughters, Mary Tatman and Susan Houck, both of Denver; a sister, Darrel Alkire, of Naples, Florida, and five grandchildren. Birth: April 2, 1915, Corona, Carlton County, Minnesota Death: February 24, 2002, Cape Coral, Lee County, Florida U.S. Navy Pilot, he directed the final attack which sank the Japanese battleship Yamato. When launched in December 1941, the Yamato was the largest battleship in the world, a record that still stands today.
Born the oldest son, with three brothers and a sister, his father, Signe R. Houck, was a farmer. He grew up in a small farming community of Corona, Minnesota, attending the local high school. After attending the University of Minnesota for three years, he dropped out and joined the U.S. Navy in 1936, becoming a fighter pilot and being commissioned an Ensign.
During World War II, he served on several aircraft carriers, and in 1944-45, he was serving on the USS Yorktown. As a Lieutenant Commander and fighter pilot flying FM-6 Hellcat fighters, he led the first mass strike by carrier based aircraft on Tokyo on February 16, 1945 (not counting the famous 1942 Doolittle raid), and by the end of the war had earned three Navy Cross Medals (the Navy Cross is the second highest award for valor, second to the Medal of Honor), shooting down six Japanese planes. In April 1945, the Yamato, a 72,000 ton battleship, fitted with 410 mm side armor deemed impenetrable, with nine 18 inch (46 cm) guns that could send a 3,200 lb shell over 20 miles, was given just enough fuel for a one-way trip. On April 6, 1945, the Yamato, the light cruiser Yahagi and 8 escorting destroyers, were sent on a suicide mission to destroy the American invasion fleet at Okinawa. The Yamato was discovered the next day, as soon as it left the Inland Sea, and was very quickly engaged by American forces. 386 aircraft from four US aircraft carriers were launched against her. When Houck led his 43 planes from the carrier USS Yorktown to the reported site of the Yamato, he found the ship listing about 20 degrees after an American submarine had pumped five torpedoes into her and other American aircraft had bombed the ship. Houck ordered his planes to attack, putting another five torpedoes into the ship and a minute later the ship’s aft magazines blew up and the ship rolled over and sank, killing 2475 of its crew. Only 269 Japanese sailors survived the sinking, to be picked up by their escorting destroyers. The cruiser was also sunk.
After the war, Houck remained in the Navy, and was promoted to Captain in 1956. He served as commander of the Aircraft Carrier USS Shangri-La in 1960-1961, and retired to Florida in 1968. He was married to Jeannette Houck, and had three children: Robert, Mary, and Susan.
Captain Herbert Norman Houck
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Okinawa Gunto Operation/East of Kyushu
From Month/Year
April / 1945
To Month/Year
April / 1945
Description The Yamato exited from the Inland Sea, was detected by the SJ radar on the USS Hackleback and tracked, as ordered by COMSUBPAC, position reported, and then sunk by the airforce just north of Okinawa.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
April / 1945
To Month/Year
April / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories As the United States 10th Army began their invasion of Okinawa on 1 April, Yamato was moving south towards the island on what was to be her final mission.[19] Code-named Operation Ten-Go and commanded by Admiral Seiichi Ito, Yamato¡ªescorted by the Light Cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers¡ªwas to beach herself on the west side of Okinawa.[20] Having become an unsinkable gun emplacement, Yamato was to then shell American forces landing on the island.[20] Yamato and her escorts only carried enough fuel to reach Okinawa, as Japanese fuel supplies were too low to allow for a return voyage.[20]
The chief officers of Yamato photographed on April 5, 1945, two days before the Ten-Go sortie. The commanding officer, Rear Admiral K¨saku Aruga, is in the center of the front rowAll of the officers and crew assumed that the voyage would be her last. Yamato had no air cover for her final mission, nor did she have many escorts. Even though the battleship was heavily armored, the crew were fortunate that they were covered by a rain squall which deterred air sorties for the first part of the journey. On her final evening, as U.S. carrier planes were expected to attack the next morning after the squalls lifted, the officers allowed or even ordered the crew to indulge in sake, a common ritual that kamikaze pilots would take before their final mission.
At about 0830 hours on 7 April 1945, United States fighter planes were launched to pinpoint the Japanese task force. By 1000 hours, Yamato's radar picked up the U.S. planes and a state of battle readiness was commanded. Within seven minutes all doors, hatches and ventilators were closed, and battle stations were fully manned.
Yamato fired beehive shells (Èýʽȼɢ??, san-shiki shosan dan?) from her main guns against the US planes. Each of these anti-aircraft shells contained thousands of pellets that would be scattered upon explosion - analogous to a massive shotgun round. However, the beehive shells were ineffective against the incoming US planes, and performed little more than pyrotechnic displays. Strafing attacks by the US warplanes would decimate many of the AA gun crews, reducing the battleship's ability to fend off the attacking US aircraft.
Planes from the carrier Hornet joined the strike force from Bennington. Bennington's VB-82, led by Lieutenant Commander Hugh Wood, was flying at 6,000 m (20,000 ft) altitude in heavy clouds on the bearing to intercept the ships. Although the radar indicated they were very close, the pilots were startled when they realized they were directly above the Japanese task force and within range of anti-aircraft fire. Lieutenant Commander Wood immediately pushed his Helldiver into the clouds and made a sharp left turn, commencing VB-82's attack. Wood's wingman was unable to stay with the formation, leaving Lieutenant (jg) Francis R. Ferry and Lieutenant (jg) Edward A. Sieber to follow Wood into the first strike on the Yamato.
The dives began at 20,000 ft directly over the Yamato, bearing from stern to bow. Bombs were released at an altitude of less than about 500 m (1,500 ft). The dives were made as close to a 90-degree angle as possible to avoid most anti-aircraft guns. Each of the three planes released eight 127 mm (5 in) rockets, two armor-piercing bombs, and bursts of 20 mm machine gun fire. Lt. (jg) Ferry remembers that "at this distance a miss was impossible". The first two bombs dropped by Lt. Commander Wood hit on the starboard side of the weather deck, knocking out several of the 25 mm machine guns and the high-angle gun turret and ripping a hole in the flying deck. Seconds later came the two bombs from Lt. (jg) Ferry, destroying the secondary battery fire control station as they blew through the flying deck and starting a fire that was not extinguished until after the ship sank. This fire continued to spread and is believed to have caused the explosion of the main ammunition magazine as the Yamato capsized some two hours later. Hot on Ferry's tail was Lt. (jg) Sieber, delivering two bomb hits forward of the island, ripping more holes in the decks in the vicinity of the number three main gun turret.
Yamato maneuvering to avoid being hit by torpedoes dropped by American planes north of Okinawa on April 7th, 1945, during her final missionThe torpedo plane pilots were ordered to aim for the parts of the Yamato's hull unprotected by her torpedo defense system: the bow and stern. They were also ordered to attack her on one side only, so that their target would capsize more easily since counter-flooding would become more difficult. Within minutes of the Avengers' torpedo attacks, the Yamato suffered three torpedo hits to her port side and began listing.
Over the next two hours, two more attacks would be launched, pounding the Yamato with torpedoes and bombs. Attempts at counter-flooding failed, and shortly after 1400 hours, the commanding officer gave the word to prepare to abandon ship. As the ship listed beyond a 90¡ã angle and began sinking bow first, a gigantic explosion of the stern ammunition magazines tore the ship in two parts. The huge mushroom of fire and smoke exploded almost four miles into the air and the fire was seen by sentries 125 miles away in Kagoshima prefecture on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands. Only 280 of the Yamato 2,778-man crew were rescued from the sinking ship. The end had come for the Yamato, foreshadowing the coming end of the Imperial Japanese Military. Ten aircraft and 12 airmen were lost in the attack on the Yamato.
Yamato listing to port and on fire. The only known photo of the Yamato exploding. The ship capsizes after numerous bomb and torpedo hits.[21] Yamato moments after explodingNaval gunfire took no part in Yamato's demise. The sinking of the world's largest battleship by aircraft alone confirmed the lessons learned by the sinking of the Prince of Wales, Repulse, and Musashi: The battleship had been supplanted by the aircraft carrier as queen of the sea and the capital ship of any fleet.
The wreckage lies in around 300 meters of water and was surveyed in 1985 and 1999. These surveys show the hull to be in two pieces with the break occurring in the area of the second ('B') main turret. The stern section is upside-down, while the bow is upright at a 45 degree angle.[22] The three main turrets fell away as the ship turned over and landed in the wreckage field around the separated hull pieces. Posing a threat to survey expeditions, several of the bombs that struck her didn't explode and two of them remained fused in her deck and visible to this day.[23]
The senior surviving bridge officer Mitsuru Yoshida claims that a fire alert for the magazine of the forward superfiring 155 mm guns was observed as the ship sank. This fire appears to have detonated the shell propellant stored as the ship rolled over, which in turn set off the magazine in Turret No. 2, resulting in the famous pictures of the actual explosion and subsequent smoke column photographed by US aircraft (shown above and recorded as being seen in southern Japan, one hundred miles away).
A further large hole was found in the stern section, strongly suggesting that a third magazine explosion occurred, possibly the aft 155 mm gun magazine.
