Jack Feliz / Denise Goolsby, The Desert Sun
Provided photo
JACK M. FELIZ
Age: 99
Born: April 15, 1911
Hometown: Riverside
Residence: Palm Springs
Military branch: U.S. Navy; USS Houston (World War II)
Years served: August 1932- October 1962
Rank: World War II: chief machinist mate; retired as commander
Family: Wife Marie
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming Wednesday
U.S. Army veteran Jim Montgomery of Rancho Mirage.
LEARN MORE
Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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Jack Feliz was aboard the USS Houston when the heavy cruiser was torpedoed off the coast of Java during World War II.
The ship — nicknamed the “Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast” — dropped into her watery grave on March 1, 1942 — accompanied by more than 700 crewmen who also perished in those dark, early morning hours during the Battle of Sunda Strait.
Feliz grabbed a life jacket and slid one of the ship's mess tables into the water to use as a raft.
“I paddled that table real fast out of the line of fire and to prevent being sucked under by the whirlpools created by a sinking ship,” he said.
When he thought he was far enough out of harm's way, he stopped and waited about an hour until the clouds opened and he could see the Southern Cross — a constellation found in the southern region of the night sky. This group of stars helped Feliz determine the direction he needed to paddle in to make it to the Java coast.
As he paddled, Feliz came across a sailor who was badly burned. He said he tried to lift the man up onto the table, but “His skin would just come off in my hands,” he said. “I finally got him on my table, but about an hour later, he started the death shakes and he finally died.”
Feliz decided to take the man ashore and bury him, but waves created by a fast Japanese destroyer force, heading right in their direction, upended them.
“The ship's bow wave turned us upside down and when I surfaced, I couldn't find my table or my passenger,” he said.
He continued swimming, but had to fight strong tides in whirlpool-filled water off the Sunda Strait.
He swam until daylight.
“I could make out the outline of a couple of high volcanoes,” Feliz said.
“I said my prayers had been answered. I was swimming in the right direction.”
By the time he hit the beach, Feliz had been swimming for 10 1/2 hours.
The USS Houston, sailing with the American-British-Dutch-Australian naval force, had been on a mission to prevent Japanese forces from invading Java, but Japanese naval power prevailed — and the men swimming ashore were soon captured.
“We landed right in the middle of landing troops,” he said.
The men, now prisoners of the Japanese, were immediately put to work unloading ammunition and supplies until midnight, when “They gave each of us some seaweed and a small ball of rice about the size of a golf ball,” Feliz said.
Feliz nearly got himself killed his first day as a POW when he disobeyed a Japanese soldier's order to hand over his shoes.
“I refused, so he put his bayonet on his rifle and made a pass at me,” Feliz said. “I pushed his rifle aside, and he became very angry.”
The soldier pulled the rifle's bolt open and closed it, arming the weapon. “That's when I got the message that I thought it was better to give up my shoes and be a live, barefooted sailor than to be a dead sailor — he would get the shoes anyway.”
In the invasion landing, horse-drawn carts made it to the beach — sans horses.
“All of their horses were on a transport ship that we sank in battle,” Feliz said.
He said a Japanese officer, who spoke English, told the men, “Now you will become the horses. You're going to pull and push these carts to Serang, Java,” a distance of about 17.4 miles.
“We were all barefooted,” Feliz said. “My feet soon formed large blisters, and as we continued, the blisters broke, and I was soon walking on raw flesh ... We marched until evening when a convoy of trucks stopped and picked up our carts and us. That was really a godsend. I was just about down to the bones in my feet. My feet give me a lot of trouble even to this day. My feet became infected, and the toes looked like elevated guns in a turret. It took about three months to heal.”
Feliz spent 3 1/2 years as a POW.
When he was captured, he was a strapping 214 pounds. During his imprisonment, his weight dropped to 92 pounds, he said.
“I was embarrassed to even look at myself,” he said.
Feliz and thousands of other POWs were transferred to different prison camps during their time in confinement, working long, hard days as slave laborers — and receiving very little to eat to help keep up their strength.
Of the 365 sailors and Marines who survived the sinking of the USS Houston, 141 of these men died in prison camps, Feliz said.
“They beat the hell out of us, too, quite frequently,” he said.
The men, who had become sick and injured and who were unable to work, were ordered to stand on the parade grounds for inspection, then were beaten with fists, clubs or other objects by Japanese officers.
Feliz said he was subjected to these brutal attacks — “Being beaten until the blood and pus ran down my legs caused by breaking blisters and boils that formed over most of my body,” he said.
Feliz, who had dysentery at times, said, “They literally beat the (expletive) out of me on several occasions, and the (expletive) ran down my legs with blood and pus.”
In late October, 1942, Feliz and about 3,000 other POWs were crammed into two prison ships and sent to Japan.
The dysentery had become widespread, and the cramped and unsanitary conditions hastened the deaths of some of the POWs during the 27-day trip.
“It was a godforsaken ship,” Feliz said. “They died like flies. We buried 38 POWs in the China Sea,” Feliz said.
When the war ended and the POWs were liberated, Feliz decided to stay in the Navy, serving for 30 years and retiring with the rank of commander.
The 99-year-old has a simple explanation for how he managed to survive during his years in captivity.
“A strong will to live, a good sense of humor and the grace of God,” he said.
