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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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Good morning Matt. Our temperatures are the same as yours during the afternoon but our nights and mornings are in the 60's. No fires in Oregon. The California fires are about 900 miles away. I think we have enough rain, often enough in Oregon to keep the fire incidents down, unlike California which doesn't get much rain at all.
If my memory serves,The USS Franklin was nearly lost at The Battle of leyte Gulf(Nov.1944).Once they got the fires out,she limped back to The Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Odd that at the end of the war she was in the best condition of all the Essex class carriers, yet she was scrapped and Yorktown and Intrepid remain.
Good Morning Matt.
Sounds like you're having similar weather to us. We've been having upper 80's and mid 90's for a while now. The good thing is the temp cools to the upper 50's in the night and mornings.
Right, she was hit by Kamikaze's on 30 October 1944 off the Philippines.
Yeah after what she went through she should have been turned into a Memorial or museum.
Medal of Honor citation of
Lieutenant Commander Joseph Timothy O'Callahan
Holy Cow! A chaplain with a MOH, that's gotta a be a rarity.
The Armada sailing up the Channel - its crescent shape clearly in view
Afternoon now, got involved in a troll thread.
Devouring their souls is becoming a full time activity..
I also shouldn't stand inside my invincible shield while the 'good guy' aims a strange weapon at me while I laugh at him.
Not too rare considering their numbers. We'll be showcasing this Chaplain and more. Don't forget the Four Chaplains that Sam covered recently on the ship that sunk during WWII.
LOL. Uncle Frank in the news again!
The Navy still uses the Franklin story to show the need for serious damage control. And, of course, to show the need for good men.
The Navy was taking draftees beginning in 1942. The old swabs were universally suprised at what snivelling cowards they were. I suspect the good draftees went into the voluntary jobs, submarines for instance.
I have got to, I will, visit Poland. Indeed make pilgrimage to Our Lady of Chenstohova.
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Air Power |
The D4Y Suisei (Comet) was one of only two Japanese warplanes in service during the Pacific War to use a liquid-cooled inline engine as its powerplant. It was a nicely-designed plane, probably the most aesthetically pleasing single-engined bomber of the war. It was certainly the fastest carrier dive bomber of the war. It was of all-metal construction, but its career had some odd parallels with the “Wooden Wonder”, the British deHavilland Mosquito. Both were intended for the bombing role, but were first used operationally as reconnaissance aircraft. And both also served as night fighters. Unlike the Mosquito, however, the Judy, as the Allies code-named it, was not as big a success as it could’ve been. Like most Japanese planes of its time, it lacked any protection for its two-man crew or for its on-board fuel. Although fast, it was still slower than the enemy fighters it was called upon to face, and was in fact often slaughtered in large numbers without compensating results to set against its losses. And although it could carry a heavier bombload than its predecessor, the Aichi D3A (Val) , it rarely did, despite the fact that, on two occasions when it did carry a heavier bombload, it scored its only major successes in its history-of which more later.
The Suisei was designed by the Naval Air Technical Arsenal at Yokosuka, hence its designation. It was created as a result of the success of the German Heinkel He-118, the fourth prototype of which had been purchased by Japan. The Navy had been impressed with this plane, an unsuccessful competitor of the Ju-87 Stuka, and had planned to produce it in a slightly modified form for carrier operation. But during a test flight, the He-118 had broken up in mid-air, ending that scheme. Still, the Navy thought that an inline-powered dive bomber was definitely in their future, so the Yokosuka Arsenal, late in 1938, was instructed to design a replacement for the Heinkel. The new aircraft was to be inspired by the He-118, but was to be smaller, faster, longer-ranged, and able to easily operate from any size aircraft carrier. A fully enclosed cockpit canopy was also part of the design criteria, as was an inward-retracting, wide-track landing gear. Chief Engineer Masao Yamana and his team created a clean mid-wing monoplane, comparatively small for a two-seat carrier dive bomber; although its wing was about the same size, in span and area, as that of Mitsubishi’s new A6M Zero fighter, the D4Y1 prototype could carry more internal fuel than the much larger Aichi D3A it was intended to supplant. The wing was so short, it precluded the need for any sort of wing-folding mechanism. It was not only smaller and lighter than its inspiration, the He-118, but it had an internal bomb-bay with a total load of 1,102 lbs., while the German plane had an external bomb rack, and could only carry the heavier bombload if the rear gunner was dispensed with. It was planned to power the D4Y1 prototype with an Aichi Atsuta engine (a license-built version of the DB-601A), but the new engine was not ready in time, so the first prototype took to the air for the first time in January 1941, powered by a 960 hp Daimler-Benz DB-600G, of which a few examples had been bought by Japan.
The performance and flight characteristics of the D4Y1 exceeded the Navy’s most sanguine hopes, and four more prototypes were quickly built by the Yokosuka Arsenal and joined the first in intensive testing. All of them were powered by the DB-600G and carried a defensive armament of two fuselage-mounted 7.7mm machine guns and one flexible 7.92mm gun (a copy of the German MG-15) in the rear cockpit. For short missions a total bombload of 1,234 lbs. could be carried, consisting of a single 1,102 lb. bomb in the bomb bay and two underwing 66 lb. bombs. But then came a near disaster: during simulated dive bombing tests, the wings began fluttering and stress cracks were afterwards found in the wing spars. Temporarily, at least, plans to have the Aichi Aircraft Co. Ltd. mass-produce the new bomber (as Yokosuka lacked the facilities to make it in more than prototype quantities) were shelved, as the D4Y1 was plainly not ready for operations in its design role.
Then, apparently, it occurred to someone that the D4Y1 could fulfill the carrier-borne reconnaissance role. The aircraft was plainly faster than the Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bomber, which was handling the carrier-borne recon mission at the time, and with drop tanks added, would have better range as well. So the D4Y1-C, or Navy Type 2 Carrier Reconnaissance Plane Model 11, was created. Powered by the 1,200 hp Aichi Atsuta 12 engine, it had the wing bomb racks beefed up and fitted with the necessary “plumbing” to carry a 72.6-gallon drop tank, and also mounted a K-8 camera in the aft fuselage. Two pre-production D4Y1-Cs went along to the fateful encounter at Midway, aboard the carrier Soryu, but both of them were lost when the carrier was sunk on June 4, 1942, and neither had a chance to prove the type’s worth. Still, the aircraft itself was perfectly good for the recon role, so it entered limited production in July while the Yokosuka team, aided by the engineers at Aichi, worked to improve the wing rigidity of the D4Y1. Only 25 production models were built by March 1943 because there was little requirement for a specialized carrier-based recon aircraft. But small detachments began serving aboard the larger Japanese aircraft carriers in the autumn of 1942, and the survivors remained in front-line service until the end of the Pacific War. The D4Y1-C was well liked by its crews, despite its lack of fuel and aircrew protection, but already ground crewmen were complaining that the Aichi Atsuta engine was temperamental and hard to maintain in service.
Meanwhile, development of the D4Y1 dive bomber continued; the main spars were reinforced, and the dive brakes improved, and the plane finally was accepted in March 1943, designated the Suisei Type 2 Carrier Bomber Model 11. As it was plain that the D3A was reaching the end of its career as a first-line aircraft, production of the Suisei was rapidly increased; most of the 589 examples built by Aichi between April 1943 and March 1944 were dive bombers. A few were designated D4Y1-KAI Model 21, as they were fitted with catapult gear to enable their operation from smaller carriers. But their carrier-borne debut in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 was singularly inauspicious. Nearly all of the 141 Suiseis and 33 D4Y1-Cs embarked aboard the nine Japanese carriers in that battle were lost, most of them in the first day’s air battles, immortalized under the name, “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”.
Lieutenant (jg) Alexander Vraciu was one of the American Navy fighter pilots in that battle. Already an ace with 12 kills, he thought he’d missed the best of the action because his engine was running roughly and wouldn’t produce full power at altitude. But after circling for a while with other fighters with similar problems, he was vectored by the fighter director aboard his carrier, the Lexington, toward a large formation of approaching planes, and as other pilots warded off the Zero escorts, Vraciu joined twelve other Hellcats in attacking the enormous gaggle. In just eight minutes, Lt. Vraciu added six Judys to his score. That his engine was not operating smoothly didn’t matter when pursuing and destroying enemy dive bombers weighted down by bombs. He made pass after pass at his opponents; he was rewarded by the sight of Judy after Judy exploding in flames and falling away burning in a last fatal dive for the sea below. Vraciu was an outstanding shot; he fired just 360 rounds during this fight-an average of only 60 rounds per kill. Rarely had a Japanese plane’s vulnerability to fire been demonstrated so conclusively. Vraciu was awarded the Navy Cross for this feat; a Zero shot down the next day raised his score to 19, a record that lasted for the next four months.
Despite the clear and ominous lesson of the Marianas Turkey Shoot, the next Judy variant still had no provision for crew or fuel-tank protection! The Suisei Type 2 Model 12, or D4Y2, entered production that April, but none were available in time for the Philippine Sea battle (perhaps, considering the enormity of the disaster, it’s just as well). This version was powered by the improved Atsuta 32 engine of 1,400 horsepower. The D4Y2a differed only in having a 13.2mm machine gun in place of the former 7.92mm gun in the rear cockpit. When fitted with catapult gear their designations were D4Y2-KAI Model 22 and D4Y2a-KAI Model 22a, respectively. A few of both kinds-the exact numbers are not available-were completed as D4Y2-C and D4Y2-Ca recon planes. These all saw their first combat in the air battles off Formosa and in the Battle for Leyte Gulf; most of them were destroyed by the superior numbers of Hellcats defending the American carriers, others being expended in kamikaze attacks, but one land-based Judy did get very lucky and dropped a single 1,102-lb. bomb on the light carrier Princeton-right in the middle of fighters and bombers preparing to take off and attack the Japanese surface fleet in the Sibuyan Sea. Amazingly, this solitary bomb in the wrong place at the wrong time was enough to devastate the gallant little ship; she was scuttled as evening drew on. The Princeton remains to this day the only first-line aircraft carrier of any nation sunk by a land-based air attack-ironically enough, by a naval dive-bomber.
In the meantime, production of the Atsuta-powered Suisei had ceased. The Atsuta engine was clearly a maintenance headache under even the best of conditions, and since an inline engine also powered the Army’s Ki-61 fighter, concern over the availability of radiator coolant entered the equation, as well. Many members of the Naval Air Staff advocated the replacement of the unreliable Atsuta with an air-cooled radial engine of similar power output as early as the turn of 1943-44. The Suisei’s slim fuselage seemed to preclude such a switch, but Aichi studied the problem, even examining an imported Focke-Wulf 190 for practical inspiration. By May 1944 a prototype was ready; it was powered by a 1,560 hp Mitsubishi Kinsei 62 fourteen-cylinder radial in a beautifully streamlined cowling. Tests showed that the new variant’s performance in nearly all respects matched that of the Atsuta-powered D4Y2, and the only negative qualities in the modification were a reduction in the pilot’s forward visibility during carrier landings and while taxiing on land. The Navy was satisfied, though, particularly with the Kinsei’s greater reliability, so they ordered the new variant from Aichi as the D4Y3 Suisei Carrier Bomber Model 33. There was also a D4Y3a model, similarly armed as per the D4Y2a. Late production D4Y3s were fitted with rocket-assisted take-off gear under the fuselage, for maximum-weight launching from smaller carriers, but no reconnaissance version of this subtype was built, as the Nakajima C6N had become available to assume this role.
It was a D4Y3 which accomplished the only other major success for the Judy, other than the destruction of Princeton; on March 19, 1945, while only 60 miles off Japan’s coast, the Essex-class carrier USS Franklin was bombed by a D4Y3 which planted two 551-lb. bombs on her crowded flight deck. The Franklin turned into a raging inferno, and only the excellence of American damage-control techniques and equipment, plus her crew’s determination, saved the ship from either sinking or being scuttled. She eventually made it back to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, an epic 12,000-mile voyage, but her career as a carrier was over.
Several Suiseis had, in the meantime, been expended as kamikaze suicide attackers, and so the Navy decided that the next production D4Y would be built especially for suicide attack. The D4Y4 Suisei Special Attack Bomber Model 43 was designed as a single-seater, as it was felt that a rear gunner was not needed for a one-way trip. This subtype carried a single 1,764-lb. bomb semi-recessed beneath the fuselage, and RATO auxiliary rockets were installed to either shorten the take-off run from small airstrips, or add speed during the final attack dive. Two hundred and ninety-six were built in 1945 by Aichi.
The Navy’s 11th Air Arsenal at Hiro also built small numbers of Suiseis; between April 1944 and the final collapse, this maker delivered 215 D4Y1s, 2s, and 3s. It also modified a small number of D4Y2s as expedient night fighters. For this mission, all carrier equipment, the underwing racks, and the flexible rear gun were removed, the bomb bay was faired over, and a single 20mm cannon was mounted obliquely in the fuselage, firing forward and upward at a 30-degree angle. A few also received racks for underwing air-to-air unguided rockets. Designated D4Y2-S, or Suisei-E Night Fighter, it saw only limited success against night-raiding B-29s, as it utterly lacked air-interception (AI) radar and was a slow-climbing aircraft even at the best of times.
The final variant was to have crew and fuel-tank protection, but was still under development at the end of the war. The D4Y5 Suisei Carrier Bomber Model 54 was to have been powered by a Nakajima Homare 11 of 1,825 horsepower, and was scheduled for production in late 1945. As this was never built, total production of all Suisei variants came to 2,038.
The Suisei’s last sortie was made on August 15, 1945, when Admiral Matome Ugaki led eleven planes in a final inconclusive attack on Okinawa. Lacking crew armor and self-sealing fuel tanks as it did throughout its career, the D4Y’s splendid speed and range were, in the final sense, wasted. Armed hardly better than the D3A, and being escorted (when they were available) by Zero fighters only slightly improved over the same models used in the Pearl Harbor attack, the Suisei must ultimately be counted as less successful than its predecessor. It has faded from the memory of all but the most knowledgeable air enthusiasts.
Specifications:
Manufacturer: Yokosuka
Type: Single-engined carrier-based dive bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, and land-based night fighter
Crew: Two
Powerplants:
(Prototypes) One 960 hp Daimler-Benz DB-600G twelve-cylinder inverted-vee liquid-cooled engine.
(All D4Y1 variants) One Aichi Atsuta 12 twelve-cylinder inverted-vee liquid-cooled engine, rated at 1,200 hp for take-off, 1,010 hp at 4,920 ft., and 965 hp at 14,600 ft.
(All D4Y2 variants) One Aichi Atsuta 32 twelve-cylinder liquid-cooled engine, rated at 1,400 hp for take-off, 1,340 hp at 5,580 ft., and 1,280 hp at 16,405 ft.
(All D4Y3 variants and D4Y4) One Mitsubishi Kinsei 62 fourteen-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, rated at 1,560 hp for take-off, 1,340 hp at 6,890 ft., and 1,190 hp at 19,030 ft.
Dimensions:
D4Y1 Model 11:
Wingspan, 37 ft. 8 ¾ in.;
length, 33 ft. 6 3/8 in.;
height, 12 ft. 7 ¼ in.;
wing area, 254.027 sq. ft.;
empty weight, 5,379 lb.;
loaded weight, 8,047 lb.;
maximum weight, 9,370 lb.;
D4Y2 Model 12:
Wingspan, 37 ft. 8 ¾ in.;
length, 33 ft. 6 3/8 in.;
height, 12 ft. 3 ¼ in.;
wing area, 254.027 sq. ft.;
empty weight, 5,809 lb.;
loaded weight, 8,455 lb.;
maximum weight, 10,192 lb.;
D4Y3 Model 33:
Wingspan, 37 ft. 8 ¾ in.;
length, 33 ft. 6 3/8 in.;
height, 12 ft. 3 ¼ in.;
wing area, 254.027 sq. ft.;
empty weight, 5,514 lb.;
loaded weight, 8,276 lb.;
maximum weight, 10,267 lb.;
D4Y4 Model 43:
Wingspan, 37 ft. 8 ¾ in.;
length, 33 ft. 6 3/8 in.;
height, 12 ft. 3 ¼ in.;
wing area, 254.027 sq. ft.;
empty weight, 5,809 lb.;
loaded weight, 10,013 lb.;
maximum weight, 10,463 lb.;
Performance :
D4Y1 Model 11:
maximum speed, 343 mph at 15,585 ft.;
cruising speed, 265 mph at 9,845 ft.;
climb to 9,845 ft., 5 min. 14 sec.;
service ceiling, 32,480 ft.;
normal range, 978 st. miles;
maximum range, 2,417 st. miles.
D4Y2 Model 12:
maximum speed, 360 mph at 17,225 ft.;
cruising speed, 265 mph at 9,845 ft.;
climb to 9,845 ft, 4 min. 36 sec.;
service ceiling, 35,105 ft.;
normal range, 909 st. miles;
maximum range, 2,239 st. miles.
D4Y3 Model 33:
maximum speed, 357 mph at 19,850 ft.;
cruising speed, 207 mph at 9,845 ft.;
climb to 9,845 ft., 4 min. 35 sec.;
service ceiling, 34,450 ft.;
normal range, 944 st. miles;
maximum range, 1,796 st. miles.
D4Y4 Model 43:
maximum speed, 350 mph at 19,355 ft.;
cruising speed, 230 mph at 9,845 ft.;
climb to 16,405 ft.; 9 min. 22 sec.;
service ceiling, 27,725 ft.;
normal range, 1,024 st. miles;
maximum range, 1,611 miles.
Armaments:
Guns:
Prototypes, all D4Y1 variants, D4Y2, D4Y2-KAI, D4Y2-C, and D4Y3) Two fuselage-mounted 7.7mm machine guns and one rear-firing flexible 7.92mm machine gun.
(D4Y2a, D4Y2a-KAI, D4Y2-Ca,, and D4Y3a) Two fuselage-mounted 7.7mm machine guns and one rear-firing flexible 13.2mm machine gun.
(D4Y4) Two fuselage-mounted 7.7mm machine guns.
(D4Y2-S) Two fuselage-mounted 7.7mm machine guns and one fuselage-mounted obliquely-firing 20mm cannon.
Bomb load:
(All variants except reconnaissance versions and D4Y4) Normal, 683 lbs.; maximum, 1,234 lbs.
(D4Y4 suicide attacker) 1,764 lbs.
Afternoon SAM, I should have been on nights starting tonight but I am taking a couple of days of vacation so I will not be back until next Friday, July30th.
My work schedule is a 28 day rotation with 14 days and 14 nights. It goes something like this, Monday is the start of the work week so my schedule goes like this:
Mon-days,Tue-off, Wed & Thur-Nites, Fri,Sat,Sun & Mon-off,Tue-nites, Wed & Thur-off, Fri,Sat,Sun & Mon-nites
Tue & Wed-off...Thur & Fri-days Sat,Sun & Mon-off, Tue & Wed-off, Thur & Fri-off and to wrap it up Sat 7 Sun days.
Ha ha can you keep that straight...I work 48 hours one week and the 36 hours the next week. All and all it is not a bad schedule. The only pig in the ointment is that one of the guys on the rotation opposite mine retired rather suddenly and we have no one to take his place, so I get to work at least one extra day every week, usually.
By taking a couple of well placed days off I can get three or four 10 day vacations and still have a couple of 6 day vacations as well.
How about that Armstrong fellow, climbed up that mountian like a scalded cat, eh.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
I remember seeing a DC training film on the FRANLKIN in the late '80s.
The four Chaplains didn't get a MOH but there were those who wanted to award it.
A posthumous Special Medal for Heroism, never before given and never to be given again, was authorized by Congress and awarded by the President January 18, 1961. Congress wished to confer the Medal of Honor but was blocked by the stringent requirements which required heroism performed under fire. The special medal was intended to have the same weight and importance as the Medal of Honor.
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