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Those Who Died That Others Might Be Free

 

Gordon Houston

Date and Place of Birth: 1917 Clarksville, Arkansas
Date and Place of Death: February 10, 1942 McChord Field, Tacoma, Washington
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Outfielder
Rank: Lieutenant
Military Unit: 55th Pursuit Group USAAF
Area Served: United States

Gordon Houston was a minor league batting champion who hoped to someday make it to the coveted record books of the major leagues. His dream did come true, but not in the way he expected. Gordon Houston is remembered as the first professional baseball player to die in World War II.

Houston was born in Clarksville, Arkansas in 1917. The Houston's were a very close-knit family and the three brothers - Gordon, Charles and Howard - were all good ball players. Their father worked as a bookkeeper for an oil company, and moved around a lot. The family were in Shreveport in the 1920s, and it was in Dallas in the 1930s that the Houston boys - especially Gordon and Charles, who were less than a year apart - began to make their mark with the Sunset High School sports teams. "They were highly sought after semi-pro ballplayers when the family moved to San Antonio in the mid-1930s," wrote David King recently in the San Antonio Express News. ¹

Gordon signed a minor league contract in 1937 and played with the Monroe Twins in the Cotton States League. Immediately, the 20-year-old outfielder demonstrated his ability to hit, posting a .320 average for the season.

In 1938, Houston had a career-best year with the Texarkana Liners, leading the East Texas League with an outstanding .384 batting average and earning an end-of-season promotion to Class A Oklahoma City in the Texas League.

Houston was back with Texarkana in 1939 but a nasty spike wound to his foot in early June hampered his performance and his hitting dropped to a .219 average. ²

On November 3, 1939, Gordon and his brother Charles enlisted in the Army Air Corps - they both wanted to be pilots. Gordon passed the eye exam but Charles did not. In February 1940, Gordon reported to Ontario Army Air Field, California for primary flight training. He received his basic flight training at Moffett Field near San Jose, and was graduated from the advanced flying school at Stockton Field, California in September. ³

But Houston had still found time to play professional baseball while learning to fly with the peacetime Air Corps. During the summer of 1940 he batted .304 in his third season with Texarkana.

1940 was to be his last year in professional baseball. The 23-year-old was now a full-time fighter pilot and following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Houston took up his position as flight leader with the 55th Pursuit Group stationed at McChord Field, just south of Tacoma, Washington. Piloting his Republic P-43 Lancer - a pre-war fighter plane that never saw combat - it was Houston's job to lead his flight up and down the coast, looking for Japanese submarines.

On February 10, 1942, Houston's flight was landing at McChord after an uneventful sortie. "There was another pilot whose radio had gone out," explains Houston's nephew, Chuck Houston. "He was coming in below my uncle's plane. So my uncle just figured he would use the overrun." ⁴

The overrun was a grassy area at the end of the runway that was used in case a plane overshoots a little. What Houston did not realize was that a ditch had been dug during the day to lay some sewer tile. "The plane hit that ditch and flipped over," recalls Chuck. "It was like hitting a brick wall at 60 miles an hour." ⁵

Houston's death was instantaneous. The repercussions everlasting. The family took the news of Gordon's death hard. More than 20 years later, at the funeral of her husband, Gordon's mother, Lydia, recalled her middle son. "When my grandfather died, I remember her saying that as hard as it was to give him up, it wasn't as hard as it was with Uncle Gordy," said Patty Rousher, the daughter of Gordon's younger brother, Howard. "She said she never really got over it." ⁶

Charles, who had always been very close to Gordon, had the responsibility of going up to Washington to claim the body, then drive his brother's car home. "I was stationed at McChord Field years later," says Charles's son, Chuck, who served for many years with the Air Force. But his father would never go up there and see him. "He said going up there again would bring up a lot of bad memories." ⁷

Houston was just 25 years old when his life came to an abrupt end. Services were held at the Fort Sam Houston Post Chapel near San Antonio on February 14, 1942 and he was buried in the National Cemetery at Sam Houston with full military honors. ⁸
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Notes

1 San Antonio Express News, June 4, 2006
2 The Sporting News, June 15, 1939
3 San Antonio Evening News, February 11, 1942
4 Correspondence, Chuck Houston (via David King) 2006
5 ibid
6 Correspondence, Patty Rousher (via David King) 2006
7 Correspondence, Chuck Houston (via David King) 2006
8 San Antonio Express, February 17, 1942

 

Added July 15, 2006

 

Copyright © 2007 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.