The story is told of a WWII U.S. Navy heavy cruiser which was the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet operating in the Asia West Pacific at the time of the United States entry into WWII. For the modest number of crew members who survived her sinking, they would be held as POWs for the remainder of the war. Among those many were forced into slave labor working on the ‘Burma-Thailand Death Railway’, which was somewhat depicted in the epic war movie, ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’.

John Schwarz is currently serving as Executive Director for the USS Houston CA-30 Survivors Association & Next Generations. He is a retired career Postal manager, a certified elementary school teacher and has delivered the presentation several dozen times at OLLI, libraries, retirement centers, etc. He has spent a lifetime in and around the survivors of the USS Houston CA-30, a WWII heavy cruiser with Captain and crew whose story epitomizes naval bravery.