Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Four United States Navy ships have borne the name Houston, after the city of Houston, Texas. The first Houston (AK-1) was originally the German freighter Liebenfels, scuttled in 1917, but then raised by the Navy and used as a transport during World War I. The second Houston (CA-30) was a heavy cruiser commissioned in 1930 and sunk at the Battle of the Java Sea in early 1942. The third Houston (CL-81) was a light cruiser, commissioned in 1943, crippled in October 1944, but saved after heroic efforts. The fourth Houston (SSN-713) is a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine commissioned in 1982 and still on active service in 2003. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.