James and his wife Robbie, my grandparents

Transferred from the Henderson to the ill-fated Houston.

Photograph by Carolyn Johnson.

Bryan Eagle, Texas-Sep 15 1945

The person of this memorial has been unaccounted for as a crew member of the USS Houston until my discovery of him on May 20 2018. He has been confused with the name James H and James G Autrey with a death of 2005. My investigation began on the day of letter below. All proving documents were provided to Col J J Karwacki on May 21 but neither the colonel or the mentioned museum has acknowledged receipt or consideration to these findings.
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May 20 2018, by email

I am a US ARMY retiree living in Thailand. I am working with the Thai-Burma Railway Center/Museum (see the attached file) to document the final resting place for the US POWs who worked the railway. Our starting point was the crew list of the USS HOUSTON Association.

James Autrey is listed as having survived the sinking of the USS HOUSTON and was taken prisoner. He was one of hundreds of US POWs (NAVY, Marine & ARMY) that were sent to Thailand and Burma to build the infamous Death Railway. Their story was told in the (highly fictionalized) book/movie Bridge over the River Kwai. He is listed as being liberated in 1945.

In our attempt to record the final resting place of these men, we started with the Findagrave website and found the vast majority as well as your entry with the “lost at sea” citation.

James is one of a handful of those POWs on whom we have little information. He is listed by the USS HOUSTON Association as having died on 25 May 2005 in Bryan TX (matching your citation). An internet search revealed ONLY your Findagrave citation. We could find NO other info on him.

For most of these men we easily found Birth and Death documents as well as US Navy records of capture and liberation. Not so with James.

James Autrey is not a common name, but common enough that there COULD be a mistake. Do you have a different story of his WW2 service?

Was he indeed “lost at sea” when the HOUSTON sank?

Perhaps the man who died in Bryan TX was a different James?

USS HOUSTON records list his US NAVY # as 3603164.

OK, having written as this, I re-visited your Findagrave citation. The second (22910374) James Autrey is shown as a US MARINE WW2; not a USS HOUSTON crewman. The USS HOUSTON crew records shown a few dozen Marines who were KIA on that night, but none with a name resembling Autrey. There is one sailor named Palmer Awtrey who was KIA.

There is a short list of “others” = POWs who survived the sinking but were not sent to work the Railway. There is NO name resembling Autrey among them.

Indeed, upon second look there is a Findagrave citation # 56114370

for the South Carolinian as USN Vet in WW2 but nothing there to say he was USS HOUSTON. We can try to follow-up with Hawaii to determine who is who.

Is there anything that you can add to the James H. Autrey story?

I do a lot of these searches and it is quite unusual for an individual to leave NO electronic footprint, especially when he served in the US military. ANCESTRY does quite a good job of including those documents and almost all of his fellow POWs had multiple citations of their service on the USS HOUSTON. Surprisingly, James does not!



In short, Seaman 2nd Class James H. Autrey Service #3603164 remains a mystery.

Certainly, one explanation is that we are confounding 2 different Veterans, but the lack of US Navy records (in ANCESTRY) concerns me. It is quite unusual for a person to leave NO paper or electronic footprint.



I look forward to trying to clear up this mystery.

It’s what I do!

Hopefully within your family group there is more to his story….



JJ KARWACKI
COL(ret) US ARMY