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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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I must share the pain.
(note) you might want to have a lager heafty bag handy.
The Ghosts of War
http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i44/44b01201.htm
By CHRISTIAN G. APPY
For three decades American leaders have tried to bury memories of the Vietnam War only to have them pop up again like indestructible poltergeists. In 1991, for example, a few days after the Persian Gulf War came to its apparent end, President George H.W. Bush declared a double victory. Not only had the United States driven Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, he trumpeted, but we had also managed to vanquish the ghostly memories of a war that was lost a generation earlier on the other side of the planet. "The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula," the president said.
Morning Aeronaut.
Morning E.G.C. More hot weather coming today and it looks like for the rest of the week.
Hi Alfa6. How long before you go back to night shift?
very messy, runoffs coming, and everyone will be exhausted and not speaking to each other by the general election.
I have the feeling this is goining to be one long, nasty election season.
Thanks for telling that story. It's so typical of America.
MMMMM! No Atkins at the Foxhole! :-)
she made it home only to be scrapped and sold to Japan as scrap steel.
It sure seems to be sad ending. I hate seeing any warhip scrapped.
Hi Feather.
It wasn’t until she was almost 30 that she finally found a Bible she was permitted to read.
Such a simple thing and yet we take it for granted in the U.S.
Morning PE.
Thanks for the flag folding demonstration this morning.
That didn't sound right, and I was planning to do more digging, then I read down to here:
He enlisted in the Navy in December 1919 and served continuously in the enlisted ranks until November 1943, when he received a commission as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade).
So both the Captain and this guy came up through the ranks. Perhaps that's why there was such concern for saving the enlisted men trapped below deck.
Morning Samwise.
Thanks for the report on the USS Franklin Sam. I have a thread coming up on Father O'Callahan. ;-)
Morning Aeronaut.
Good morning EGC. How's your Dad doing?
Hurray for Hump Day.
There's a lot to be said for "coming up through the ranks". You don't learn everything in a classroom.
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