Cynthia Herschkowitsch: Digging for facts the old-fashioned way

Cynthia Herschkowitsch teaches at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas ISD and is a Teacher Voices volunteer columnist.

VoicesSometime between midnight of Feb. 28, and the pre-dawn hours of March l, 1942, my mother's brother, Fred Marshall Howard, went Missing in Action during the Battle of Sunda Strait.

His ship, the U.S.S. Houston, was severely damaged in battle, and the crew had hoped to reach the open sea and head to port for repairs.

Neither Fred nor the Houston made it. My mother remembers her parents getting a telegram telling them what they already knew from the newspapers: The Houston had been sunk, and there was no way of knowing who survived.

She also recalls that the family had a memorial service at some point and that Fred was declared legally dead, along with thousands of other MIAs, when the war ended.

It always haunted me that my grandparents never knew what actually happened to Fred. In 1995, my father's health began to deteriorate, and I decided that, if I was ever going to find out what happened, I had better get started.

I wrote the Navy for Fred's records, which revealed very little – photos of the American Cemetery in Manila where many servicemen were buried and a tribute to the MIAs.

But that was not enough, so I began to read books about the Houston. One book led to another, and eventually, to a Survivor's Association and their publication, the Bluebonnet. Many of the books had survivors' accounts of those final hours, but nothing about Fred. A rare book dealer helped me find a couple of out-of-print books about the Houston.

On May, 1998 – the last day of school – I was reading The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait, by Walter G. Winslow, when I came across an account by a survivor with the charmingly coincidental name of Reese Howard from Kentucky. It started, "After the Houston began to sink, this old boy from Texas – Fred Howard – and I jumped off and straddled two old mattresses until they got waterlogged..."

What? Oh, my God! Did I really just read that? It went on to say that they eventually got on a raft, but it became too crowded, and they got off and started swimming to shore. Fred was struck by a Japanese landing barge in the darkness.

So there it was in black and white. Fred didn't die when the Houston was torpedoed. He went to a watery grave, as befits a sailor, I suppose.

With this information, I was able to obtain a marker from the Navy for a grave at Furneaux Cemetery in Carrollton. In July 1999, the Howard family finally laid their brother to rest with full honors. The Navy sent a flag detail, and a bugler played "Taps," a fitting tribute.

My point of this story is this: None of this was Googled. I spent years writing letters, reading documents and books, experiencing the satisfaction of discovering things that had escaped other people. The research was a history lesson in itself, and an opportunity to know the rare book dealer and Reese Howard, the man who was with my uncle at the end. Reese shared invaluable information about my uncle.

You should never give up the quest. If you persevere, you might get lucky, but don't expect a shortcut. Not everything is "Google-able."

From 1942 to 1998 is a long time, and I wish all of this could have happened in my grandparents' lifetime. But at least my mother and her two surviving siblings found out the truth. And Uncle Fred is back home, in his final resting place.


Cynthia Herschkowitsch teaches at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas ISD and is a Teacher Voices volunteer columnist.

 The Dallas Morning News - May 2, 2010