Maj. David Henry Wainwright Houck
Commanding Officer, 118th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. (USAAF).
Born in Baltimore, MD on 26 Dec 1914 to Harry E. and Nellie W. Houck.
Shot down over Hong Kong and executed by the Japanese on 6 April 1945.
Major David H.W. Houck was shot down over Hong Kong on 15 Jan1945 and captured by the Japanese Army who were in control of the city. Charged with the dubious crime of “indiscriminate” bombing, he was subsequently tried, convicted, and executed by a Japanese military tribunal on 6 April 1945.
David Henry Wainwright Houck was born to Henry and Nellie (White) Houck in Baltimore, MD on 26 Dec 1914. Enrolling at Johns Hopkins University in 1932, he graduated in 1935 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Engineering Corps in April 1941 and would later request a transfer to the Army Air Corps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In April 1944 he received orders to India, serving as chief of operations on the staff of Brigadier Julian B. Haddon, commander of the XIV Air Force Service Command. From there, he would transfer to his own command in the China Theater of Operations.
Maj. Houck arrived in at Liuchow Airbase in the Sichuan Province, China in December 1944 to assume command of the 118th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, relieving Col. Edward O. McComas. On 15 Jan 1945, flying a P-51 Mustang, he was shot down during a mission to destroy enemy shipping in Hong Kong Harbor.
Captured and held in custody by the Japanese Kempeitai, he would be transferred to Stanley Prison on the peninsula in February. After enduring months of severe treatment, including torture, the Japanese levied a trumped-up charge of bombing a civilian vessel and brought him to trial on April 5, 1945. The trial was then, and has ever since, been judged to be punishment for refusing to divulge intelligence regarding American operations and strength in the region. Major Houck was afforded no defense counsel and no witnesses testified for him. The trial itself was as quick as might be expected in such a case, lasting just over an hour; he was summarily convicted after just twenty minutes deliberation, and executed by firing squad the following day, 6 April 1945, at Sheko Bay, Hong Kong.
In Oct 1947, Major Houck’s body was one of the first to be repatriated from the former Chinese Theater, he was interred at Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, MD on 29 Oct 1947. Maj. Houck’s mother Nellie would decide to memorialize her son with a marker that would not only express her sorrow at losing her only son but ensure that the world would forever remember him as one of the “men who one World War II.” She would commission well known Baltimore Sculptor Reuben Kramer, a distinguished alumnus of The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), to craft her memorial to her son.
To learn more about the trial and execution of Maj. David Henry Houck, and the subsequent war crimes trials for his captors and executioners, please visit the Tribute Site for the 118th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron.
