Крейсер «Хьюстон» (CL/CA 30) ВМС США

Northampton class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy

USS Houston (CL/CA 30), was a of the United States Navy. She was the second Navy ship to bear the name "Houston". She was launched by Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Virginia, on 7 September 1929, sponsored by Elizabeth Holcombe (daughter of Oscar Holcombe, then mayor of Houston, Texas), and commissioned on 17 June 1930, Captain Jesse Bishop Gay commanding. The ship was originally classified as a light cruiser (hull number CL 30) because of her thin armor. Houston was redesignated a heavy cruiser (CA 30) on 1 July 1931, as the provisions of the 1930 London Naval Treaty considered ships with 8 inch (20.3 cm) main guns to be heavy cruisers.

After conducting a shakedown cruise in the Atlantic, Houston returned to the United States in October 1930. She then visited her namesake city, and joined the fleet at Hampton Roads. Steaming to New York, the cruiser departed on 10 January 1931 for the Pacific, and after stopping at the Panama Canal and the Hawaiian Islands, arrived at Manila on 22 February. Houston became flagship of the Asiatic Fleet upon arrival, and for the next year participated in training operations in the Far East. Houston became flagship of the U. S. Fleet on 19 September, when Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch brought his flag aboard, and maintained that status until 28 December, when she returned to the Scouting Force. Continuing the routine of training exercises, she got underway for Fleet Problem XX, on 4 January 1939 from San Francisco, sailed to Norfolk and Key West, and there embarked the President and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William D. Leahy, for the duration of the exercise. She arrived in Houston on 7 April for a brief visit before returning to Seattle, where she arrived on 30 May.

As the war crisis deepened, Admiral Hart deployed his fleet in readiness. On the night of the Pearl Harbor attack, Houston got underway from Panay Island with fleet units bound for Darwin, Australia, where she arrived on 28 December 1941 by way of Balikpapan and Surabaya. After patrol duty, she joined the American British Dutch Australian (ABDA) naval force at Surabaya. shooting down 7 of the 44 planes of the second wave. The convoy continued toward Timor for a few hours, with Houston launching a scout plane seeking the enemy position. ABDA suspected the presence of Japanese carriers, an imminent invasion of Timor, and a support fleet lying in wait and thus ordered the convoy back to Darwin, which it reached before noon on 18 February. Houston and Peary departed later that day to rejoin combat forces at Tjilatjap. Shortly after departure, Peary broke off to chase a suspected submarine, and expended so much fuel in doing so that the destroyer returned to Darwin instead of continuing with Houston. Houston thus escaped the Japanese attack on Darwin on 19 February, in which Peary, Meigs and Mauna Loa were among the ships sunk and Portmar was forced to beach.

Receiving word that the major Japanese invasion force was approaching Java protected by a formidable surface unit, Admiral Doorman decided to meet and seek to destroy the main convoy. Sailing on 26 February 1942 with the cruisers Houston, , , , HNLMS Java and ten destroyers, he met the Japanese support force under Admiral Takeo Takagi consisting of four cruisers and 13 destroyers in the late afternoon of 27 February 1942.

Houstons fate was not fully known by the world for almost nine months, and the full story of her last fight was not told until the survivors were liberated from prison camps at the end of the war. There could be no doubt whatsoever which wreck they were diving as the ships bell had been 'unofficially' raised from Houston'''s wreck in 1973 (as was Perth's in the late 1960's, and a book written about the 'expedition' by the salvor, David Burchell), and after passing through several hands over the years, now sits atop a plinth in a park in the city of Houston, Texas, USA (while Perth's bell is displayed at the Perth Town Hall in Western Australia). Another survey of Houston occurred in October 2015, with United States Navy and Indonesian Navy divers embarked aboard for a nine day survey of Houston and Perth'' (which had also been subject to unauthorized salvaging). Divers documented the condition of the two shipwrecks, with this data presented to a conference in Jakarta on preserving and preventing the illegal salvage of wartime shipwrecks in the Java Sea.