Skip to main content

DETRE, George E. (b. 1918)

Military ServiceU.S. Navy WWII Veteran
Notable infosurvivor of the sinking of the USS Houston

Oral Histories

OH 0475

Survivor of the sinking of the USS Houston. His experiences as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II. Sinking of Houston, 1942; capture and imprisonment at Serang, Java; Bicycle Camp, Batavia, 1942; Changi Prison Camp, Singapore, 1942; building the Death Railway, 1942-44; Kanchanaburi, Thailand, 1944; Singapore, 1944-45; hell ship to Japan, 1945; coal mining at Senju, Kyushu, 1945; liberation.