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Posted on 07/21/2004 12:02:36 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.
Where the Freeper Foxhole introduces a different veteran each Wednesday. The "ordinary" Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine who participated in the events in our Country's history. We hope to present events as seen through their eyes. To give you a glimpse into the life of those who sacrificed for all of us - Our Veterans.
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Alvin B Tidwell  USS Franklin Puts To Sea First Time February 21, 1944 The Franklin's story began on December 7, 1942, the first anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when her keel was laid in a graving dock of the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, on Virginia's Atlantic Shore. The Franklin was the fifth ship of the Essex class to be constructed. After Pearl Harbor the American industrial complex had responded swiftly and decisively to Roosevelt's December 8th declaration that "No matter how long it may take us, America in its righteous might will overcome and win through to absolute victory." Before the end of the war America would construct 24 Essex class carriers. By February 21, the Franklin was ready to be thrust into the battles of the war that were pushing the Japanese back to their mainland, island by island and cave by cave. That day as the tugboats eased the immense carrier into Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay, her Captain, James Shoemaker, and her crew did not imagine that their beautiful lumbering giant of a ship would sail and fight through one hundred and two thousand combat miles, participating in five major pacific campaigns. Franklin's fighters, bombers and torpedo planes would down hundreds of the Japanese Empire's war planes and dozens of Japanese ships. But no one knew that morning the ultimate fate that lay ahead for the Franklin on March 19, 1945; the day on which the journey would end for 835 of her crew. The day which would be somberly commemorated each year by the men who pulled her from the precipice of destruction.  Franklin Under Attack From Her Own Rockets, Bombs, Ammunition and Aviation Fuel Burns Out Of Control On the morning of March 19, 1945, The Franklin, nicknamed by her crew as Big Ben, was 60 miles from the shores of Kyushu, Japan. Franklin was part of Task Force Fifty-Eight of the American Fifth Fleet. The task force covered a fifty square mile area of ocean. It was the greatest armada of ships the world had ever seen. Big Ben's new commanding officer was Captain Leslie E. Gehres. Her first Captain, James Shoemaker had turned over command on November 7, 1944. Gehres was a strict officer who had risen up through the ranks from an enlisted man. He was one of the pioneers of naval aviation, having flown from the first US aircraft carrier, the Langley. Joining Gehres on board the Franklin was Rear Admiral Ralph Davison; Franklin was the flagship of Task Group 58.2  This is a picture of the Franklin after being hit by two 450 lbs. bombs dropped by a D4Y "Judy" Yokosuka. Davison's flagship was a proven warrior. On March 18, 1945, Big Ben's planes once again roared down her teak wood flight deck into the skies of the Japanese home islands.Franklin had a new airgroup on board, air group five - the famed Black Sheep Squadron of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington. During the day the air group struck numerous strategic targets and downed eighteen enemy planes.  Ship's after 5"/38 twin gun mount burning, as her crew tried to control fires on 19 March 1945. The carrier had been hit by a Japanese air attack while operating off the coast of Japan. Photographed from USS Santa Fe (CL-60), which extinguished the fire in this gun mount by playing streams of water through the mount's open door. Later, the other 5"/38 twin gun mount and the 40mm quad machine gun mount (at right) also burned. Note ammunition loaded in the feed racks of the 40mm guns. The Japanese defenders reacted immediately, sending out scores of planes at the task group. Throughout the rest of the day and night Gehres sent men to their battle stations during numerous trumpetings of the general quarters alarms. Hot meals were not prepared during the state of heightened alert; cold sandwiches were passed out to the crew. Throughout the early morning hours of March 19, 1945, the alarms continued to sound. Gunner's mates helping the airgroup break out bombs and rockets on the hangar deck were constantly running back out to their gun posts at the sound of the alarm. The ship had been hit by a Japanese "Judy" divebomber, dropping two five-hundred pound bombs just aft of her island.  The Franklin, which was loaded with fully gassed and armed planes and hundreds of tons of explosives was herself a 30,000 ton floating bomb. After the initial blasts of the two bombs, the Franklin's open aviation lines ignited. The planes warming up on her flight deck turned into raging infernos; their bombs and rockets adding to the conflagration. 40,000 gallons of aviation fuel poured out of Franklin's hangar deck in a flaming niagra. Every last soul, except for two reported survivors, on the hangar deck was vaporized in the flash of an instant. Raymond Milner, Smith's best friend on the carrier, had passed into the pages of history along with several hundred other sailors.  The damage to the ship was incredible. Rockets soared across her bomb-riddled flight deck. Ready service magazines exploded. The 32 ton forward deck elevator lifted into the air and crashed back through to the hangar deck. The explosions literally lifted the carrier out of the sea and shook it from side to side. Men standing on the decks of the adjoining task force ships saw thick black smoke rising hundreds of feet in the air above the Franklin like the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion. No one thought the Franklin would survive.  Afire and listing after she was hit by a Japanese air attack while operating off the coast of Japan, 19 March 1945. Photographed from USS Santa Fe (CL-60), which was alongside assisting with firefighting and rescue work. Big Ben's skipper reacted decisively. He swung the ship's wheel to starboard, permitting firefighters to work fore and aft. The Franklin, still pushing 24 knots was now headed on a direct course for Japan. Eventually, her boilers shut down. She began drifting toward the shores of Japan; she would come to within 50 miles from enemy shores; an easy target for the Japanese land based bombers. Rear Admiral Davison and his aide came up to the bridge and told Gehres that they would have to transfer the flag to a nearby destroyer. The Admiral's aide suggested to Gehres that he issue the order to abandon ship over the starboard bow. Gehres said years later, "That was none of his damn business. I had no intention of abandoning the ship."  In the wardroom, casualties are given emergency treatment Gehres kept in mind the lessons learned at the Battle of Midway. He remembered that when the U.S.S. Yorktown, CV 5, was sunk, our destroyers had delivered the final torpedoes that destroyed her. He had heard the rumor that men were trapped below decks on the Yorktown when she went down. He stated that he was not about to send hundreds of his own sailors to a similar fate. The Admiral and his aides left the Franklin. Captain Gehres set his mind to saving his ship and his crew.  After the Franklin was crippled, the USS Santa Fe assisted the Franklin by taking the wounded onto their ship. Meanwhile, another gallant officer on the Franklin, Lt. j.g. Donald A Gary, a 30 year navy veteran set out to find men trapped below. He donned an airbreather with a 60 minute oxygen supply and descended into the ship's smoke filled labyrinths. Gary negotiated his way through passageways filled with fallen shipmates until he came upon the mess hall filled with 300 men who were certain that death was imminent. He restored their hope, telling them that he knew a way they could all make it out alive. Gary led the men in small groups up to the flight deck past indescribable visages of death. He repeated this journey several times until all the men in the mess hall had been led to safety.  The burning Franklin with the Santa Fe alongside, transferring 833 nonessential crew members to safety aboard the cruiser while at the same time assisting in fire fighting. Above on the flight deck, the fires were still burning. The Catholic Chaplain, Joseph O'Callohan was administering last rites to the gravely wounded when he learned that a fire was threatening to blow up one of the ship's five inch gun mounts. The Chaplain assembled a work crew and jumped into the mount, throwing the ammunition overboard and saving the ship's island from certain destruction.  One of the few portside views of the Franklin, as seen from the USS Pittsburgh (CA-72), as the cruiser maneuvers to tow the carrier away from the Japanese mainland. For the meritorious actions, above and beyond the call of duty, in tyhe face of the enemy, and with no apparent regard for their own well-being, O'Callohan and Gary were both awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The fleet closed in around the Franklin; cruisers, destroyers and battlecruisers placed a tight screen around her. Captain Harold Fitz, of the USS Santa Fe, rammed his cruiser into the Franklin's starboard hull to take aboard the carrier's wounded and aid in fighting fires on the hangar and flight decks. Captain Gerhes called it the most daring piece of seamanship that he had ever seen. Countless numbers of men jumped from Big Ben to the cruiser.  When the Santa Fe sailed away from the Franklin, a Japanese dive bomber sliced through the taskgroup and headed right for the carrier. A 40 mm guncrew took the Judy under fire. The enemy pilot dropped his bomb 200 yard's from CV 13's starboard quarter. American pilots splashed the bomber a short distance away from the taskgroup.  Around 1:00 PM, one of the Franklin's anchors was cut from its chain so the chain could be attached to a tow line. A group of men pulled a 540 foot steel cable through the sea from the cruiser Pittsburgh. The carrier was in tow, moving at only three and one-half knots.  Funeral services for those who paid the ultimate price are attended by their shipmates Big Ben's engineers were determined to make the ship operational; she had lost all electrical power, and her four forward boilers were damaged beyond repair. Her electricians located an operating emergency diesel generator. They routed its power lines to the ship's main distribution board. Suddenly, light flooded some of Franklin's corridors, and ventilation fans started pulling out the smoke.  USS FRANKLIN approaches New York City, while en route to the New York Navy Yard for repairs, 26 April 1945. Note the extensive damage to her after flight deck, received when she was hit by a Japanese air attack off the coast of Japan on 19 March 1945. Photographed by Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey. The carrier's lack of boiler power caused by her damaged forward firerooms presented a more defiant problem. They could not be repaired at sea under the circumstances in which Franklin found herself. Big Ben's after boilers were operational, but at present were only supplying power to her after engines. The carrier moved at only 6 knots. The engineers decided to route steam pressure from the after boilers through auxiliary steam lines to her forward engines. It had never been tried before on an Essex class carrier. On March 20, before noon, the Franklin cast off its tow line and was moving away from Japan at 15 knots.  View on the flight deck, looking forward, while the carrier was in New York Harbor, circa 28 April 1945. She had just returned from the Pacific for repair of battle damage received off Japan on 19 March 1945. Note damage to her flight deck, large U.S. ensign flying from her island, and the Manhattan skyline in the background. One day after the Franklin was nearly destroyed , Captain Gerhes wrote on his bulletin board for the crew: "We are under our own power and will be making fifteen knots by noon." After the tow line was cast off, Big Ben headed toward Ulithi Atoll. She arrived at Ulithi on Sunday, March 25, 1945. Father O'Callohan led memorial services for the dead. Battle hardened sailors openly wept. Almost one-fourth of their shipmates were buried in the waters of the South Pacific. The following morning, Franklin headed for Pearl Harbor. Upon arriving at Pearl, it was determined that CV 13 would have to be repaired by the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  The USS Franklin's devastated flight deck is seen in this color photo, as she sails proudly under her own power to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in late April 1945. Two bombs that hit her on March 19, 1945 ignited fires that resulted in the most damage received by any Essex-class carrier in the war. Total casualties were 802 killed and 265 wounded. Franklin left Pearl on April 9th. Five days prior to reaching the Panama Canal, on April 12, the crew learned that the nation's President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had passed away. The 704 men left aboard the Franklin mourned the only President they could remember. A man who was a living example of the indomitable American spirit which had saved Big Ben. The Franklin passed by the Statue of Liberty on April 30, 1945, all hands on deck, standing at salute. The 12,000 mile journey had ended for the most heavily damaged warship in the history of the US Navy ever to make it back to port under her own power. Over the next month awards for gallantry and valor were presented to Big Ben's crew. The Franklin's crew remains to this day the most decorated crew in the history of the United States Navy.  Church service on the ship's ruined hangar deck, taken upon her return to the U.S. from the Pacific for repair of battle damage received off Japan on 19 March 1945. Location is probably in, or near, New York Harbor, circa 28 April 1945. The Franklin was completely repaired over the next year. In April 1946, it was announced by the Navy that Franklin would be placed in mothballs. After her repairs, Franklin was in the best condition of any Essex class carrier in operation, according to Navy experts. Twenty years later, the Franklin was destroyed by cutter's torches; her steel was sold to the former enemy that tried to destroy her. In conclusion, I will add the words that were written 50 years ago in her crew book: I ONLY WISH MY DAD WAS HERE TO TELL THIS STORY, HE DIED 27 MAY 2001 MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND AND WAS BURIED WITH FULL HONORS ON THE ORGINAL MEMORIAL DAY. HE WAS A HERO IN THE TRUEST OF TERMS TO ME. MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE IN THE ARMS OF OUR LORD.
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Thanks and good nite . . . George Bailey. ;^)
I don't think so. The crew was evacuated, they sent a search party on her after the fourth, then a salvage team before she sank. You would think they would know if anyone was trapped by then. Unfortunatly the crew of the destroyer moored next to here were all lost when she was hit by the 4th torpedo. It's not clear to me yet who or if anyone was on board besides crew from the Hamman.
Quick repairs at Pearl Harbor put Yorktown into good enough condition to participate in the Battle of Midway on 4-6 June 1942. During this great turning point of the Pacific War, her air group fatally damaged the Japanese aircraft carrier Soryu and shared in the destruction of the carrier Hiryu and cruiser Mikuma. However, successive strikes by dive bombers and torpedo planes from Hiryu seriously damaged Yorktown, causing her abandonment during the afternoon of 4 June. Two days later, while salvage efforts were underway, the Japanese submarine I-168 torpedoed both the damaged carrier and the destroyer Hammann (DD-412), sinking the latter immediately and Yorktown shortly after daybreak on 7 June 1942. USS Yorktown's wreck was discovered and examined in May 1998, in surprisingly good condition after fifty-six years beneath more than three miles of sea water.
And more from another site:
The crew was evacuated by order of Captain Buckmaster but the carrier did not go down. She began to drift and a recovery team was able to board her on June 5, but she was not to be saved. The Yorktown was finished off on June 8 when struck by 3 of 4 torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-168. The destroyer Hammann, moored to and providing power to the crippled carrier, was struck by the 4th torpedo and was lost with virtually all hands.
As the Japanese fleet withdrew following the 4 June carrier battle, PBYs from Midway began searching for the dozens of downed U.S. aviators. Ensign George Gay, a Torpedo Squadron Eight pilot from USS Hornet and the only man to survive his group's heroic attack on the Japanese carriers, was rescued on 5 June, after spending a day and night floating, and hiding, near burning Japanese ships. The enemy picked up another three American fliers, and killed them all after interrogation.
During the succeeding days, other pilots and aircrewmen were rescued by patrol planes and U.S. warships, as were the survivors of USS Yorktown, USS Hammann and of two sunken Japanese ships, the carrier Hiryu and cruiser Mikuma. On 21 June, seventeen days after ditching their plane, a TBD crew was recovered some 360 miles from Midway, the last of the battle's survivors to be rescued at sea.
Other aviators, perhaps not rescued at sea but survivors all the same, were evacuated to Hawaii. Among them were the remaining Marine Fighting Squadron 221 pilots who had so valiantly defended Midway against overwhelming odds and the Midway airmen who had attacked the Japanese fleet on 4 June. Some of the survivors were in good condition and quickly returned to duty. Others, injured in many of the ways offered by modern war, spent months and years in hospitals, personally enduring the tragic aspects of a great triumph.
This page presents photographs of Battle of Midway survivors at Pearl Harbor soon after rescue, and in other locations during the following months.
Some of it eventually does, some of it was never classified it just gets buried in all the paperwork and no one knows it's there until some historian stumbles across it.
See post #93. :-(
Thanks alfa6. Your answer is right on the money. :-)
Thanks Alfa6.
Thanks for looking up the info, Partner. :-)
Actions and Activities after 4 June 1942 --
USS Yorktown Salvage and Torpedoing, 5-6 June 1942
Once the abandoned Yorktown's crewmen were safely recovered, her escorts departed, leaving behind the destroyer Hughes (DD-410) to keep watch. Early the next day, 5 June, a seaplane from the Japanese cruiser Chikuma spotted the drifting carrier. In mid-morning, Hughes discovered two injured men who had been left behind, rescued them and examined the ship.
Later, the tug Vireo (AT-144) came on the scene and took Yorktown under tow, while working parties jettisoned boats and an anchor. However, the old tug could do little more than keep the big ship headed into the wind.
Several other destroyers arrived early on 6 June, carrying a salvage party of Yorktown crewmen. Boarding the carrier at daybreak, the men set to work pushing guns, aircraft and other removable weights over the side, counterflooding to reduce the list and performing the many other tasks involved in saving their ship. USS Hammann (DD-412) lay alongside to provide power, water and other assistance, while other destroyers patrolled nearby to protect Yorktown from intruders.
By mid-afternoon, prompted by the previous day's seaplane report, the Japanese submarine I-168 crept undetected into the area. Taking a submerged attack position, she fired four torpedoes, hitting Hammann and Yorktown amidships on their starboard sides. The destroyer went down in a few minutes. Many of her crew killed or badly injured in the water when her depth charges exploded as she sank. Vireo cut the towline, and the salvage party were taken off the now even-more-greviously wounded carrier. But she continued to float, and plans were made to restart work the next morning.
USS Yorktown, now with large torpedo holes on both sides amidships, floated through the night of 6-7 June 1942, while her escorting destroyers unsuccessfully pursued the Japanese submarine I-168, treated injured sailors and kept watch. As dawn approached, it was clear that the carrier was lower in the water with an increasing list. As the sun rose on 7 June, Yorktown rolled over on her port side and sank by the stern.
She was not seen again by human eyes until 19 May 1998, when an expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard located and photographed her wreck, sitting upright on the sea floor with a 25-degree list to starboard. Despite fifty-six years under 16,650 feet of salt water, Yorktown was in surprisingly good condition, with all but a little of her structure undistorted and readily recognizable. Measure 12 camouflage paint was still intact, and the white hull number "5" could be seen at her bow and stern. Evidence of Battle of Midway damage and the subsequent salvage efforts was abundant: the bomb hole in her flight deck aft of the midships elevator; fire-damaged paint and metal on her smokestack; a huge torpedo hole in her port side; anti-aircraft guns still pointing skyward and other guns missing where they had been jettisoned by the salvage party on 6 June 1942.
This page presents photographs of USS Yorktown as she sank. Link
History of the Hammann:
About 1700 Yorktown began abandoning ship. As the first three destroyers began to fill up with survivors, Hughes and then Hammann were ordered by Comdesron Two to leave screen and assist in picking up survivors from the water and life rafts in vicinity of Yorktown. Twice during the rescue operations, unidentified planes were reported in the vicinity but no enemy planes were sighted. Hammann went close astern of Yorktown and picked up the last of the survivors including the commanding officer, Captain BUCKMASTER. Total survivors rescued by Hammann was 87.
6. Upon completion of rescue work, cruisers formed column, screened by destroyers. Hammann went alongside Astoria, as directed by CTF-17, and transferred Captain BUCKMASTER and two of his officers. Resumed station in cruising disposition on Easterly courses. Hughes was directed by CTF-17 to return and standby Yorktown. The two cruisers from Taskforce 16 left the disposition to rejoin their taskforce. At sunrise the following morning, destroyers were directed to transfer all Yorktown survivors to Portland and to fuel from Portland during the transfer. While Balch and Benham were transferring survivors, Hammann went alongside Astoria, as directed by CTF-17, and received Captain BUCKMASTER and a salvage party of Yorktown officers and men. About 1500, Hammann followed Anderson alongside Portland. Transferred Yorktown survivors to Portland and received additional Yorktown officers and men for salvage party. Fueled to 90% capacity. Upon completion, Hammann, Balch, and Benham, designated as Taskgroup 17.5, Captain BUCKMASTER, set course 285° T. speed 16 knots to return to Yorktown.
9. The underwater explosion apparently killed a large number of men in the water and injured about eighty five more of whom twenty six died on board U.S.S. Benham enroute to Pearl Harbor. Of a total of 13 officers and 228 men on board, two officers were known dead and seven missing, twenty five men were known dead and forty seven missing. Of the remainder all were rescued by U.S.S. Benham and returned to Pearl Harbor excepting the Commanding Officer and one man picked up by U.S.S. Balch and later transferred to U.S.S. Gwin for transportation to Pearl Harbor.
Great read about the USS FRANKLIN.
In boot camp, during the damage control and firefighting classes we had, the FRANKLIN and her crew were presented as "how to" fight shipboard fires and control hull integrity.
Aboard ship, you can't call 911. The crew becomes the fire dept.
Thanks DD.
One of the things that I could never have gotten used to, was that on a ship at sea there's no where to go. I think that would have drove me crazy.
Ok Ms. Expert at Research. ;-)
Lance Armstrong finished strong today, the exceptional champion in a spirited sprint, having said, "Nuts!" to Herr General Kanzer.
In an innumerable rerun of "Independence Day" Randy Quaid delivers the coup de grace to the U-Ropeans from Outer Space.
The Admiral and his aide urged Captain Gehres to abandon ship, and Gehres replied with acta non verba which could be signed, "I have not yet begun to fight."
Commander Gary and Captain O'Callahan beat the devil--they just played better banjo while bombs burst in air
Reagan's visionary enthusiasm beat Carter's mopey malaise, and we'll have at the helm for Next Year In Iran a fellow who won't explain the nuances of how we couldn't do it, or shouldn't do it, or must lisp permission from Kofi and Jacques.
October 30, 1944 ~ 1,000 miles off Samar ~ USS FRANKLIN is attacked by enemy suicide bombers. Three doggedly pursue FRANKLIN, the first plummeting off her starboard side; the second hitting the flight deck and crashing through to the gallery deck, showering destruction, killing 56 and wounding 60; the third discharging another near miss at FRANKLIN before diving into the flight deck of USS BELLEAU WOOD (CVL 24). Both carriers retire to Ulithi for temporary repairs and FRANKLIN proceeds to Puget Sound Navy Yard arriving November 28, 1944, for battle damage overhaul.
Image URL (rottentomatoes.com may/may not allow hotlinking)
S.O.S Catastrophe: Spirit of Survival - Typhoons & Kamikaze/ Saga of the USS Franklin (1998)
Sudan kept offering Osama bin Laden and yet traitorrapist42 didn't take him.
The Predator with Hellfire returned clear visual of Osama on at least three of its eleven flights September-October, 2000, yet tr42 didn't order take the shot.
Bush took out Afghanistan and Iraq (giving us simplified firing solutions on Iran, Syria, and environs--
--yet some people are still bitching about their underwear.
Evening Phil Dragoo.
Excellent commentary as usual.
Snippy and I watched a video on the bombing of the USS Franklin and the radio operator on the other ship said he tried repeatedly to warn the Franklin that the incoming plane was Japanese, the Franklin kept insisting it was a friendly even when told that the other ships had a visual ID on the plane.
BTTT!!!!!!!
There's a website for the USS Cabot (CVL-28) that shows the ship in various stages of scrapping. This ship was sold to Spain in the sixties and bought back in the nineties to be made a museum in New Orleans. The corporation went bankrupt. The ship was sold for scrap. The website is http://www.usscabot.com It was the last remaining of the Independence class light carriers that were converted from cruiser hulls. As a 20 year Navy veteran, I agree with you, it hurts seeing any warship scrapped. I am not looking forward to the day when the three carriers on which I served, Kennedy, Nimitz, and Eisenhower, are decommisioned.
There is one other... after being the last Essex decommisioned, the Lexington (CV/CVT/AVT-16) is now a museum in Texas.
Wasn't aware of that one.
Thanks!
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