Patrick L. Colbert

Born on March 16, 1914, in Mohall, North Dakota. As a residnet of Steele County, North Dakota he entered the US Navy Fargo, North Dakota on July 30, 1940. 

On February 28, 1942, the day after the Battle of the Java Sea, the HMAS Perth of the Australian Navy and the USS Houston (CA-30), both damaged during the Battle of the Java Sea, steamed into Banten Bay where they encountered a large force of Japanese vessels conducting an amphibious landing. A squadron of enemy destroyers blocked Sunda Strait, the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra which was the only path of retreat for the two Allied ships. The Allied cruisers sunk one Japanese vessel and forced three others to run aground before the Perth, which had been hit repeatedly with gunfire and torpedoes, sank itself. The Houston, also heavily damaged by gunfire and torpedoes, managed to damage three enemy destroyers and sink a minesweeper before finally sinking. More than six hundred crew members from the Houston were lost when the cruiser went down. Those who survived the sinking were immediately captured by the Japanese.

Machinist's Mate Second Class Patrick L. Colbert, who joined the U.S. Navy in California, was serving aboard the Houston when it sank. He was lost with the ship, and his remains were not recovered following the incident. Today, Machinist's Mate Second Class Colbert is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.