Franklin (CV 13) - Naval Cruise Book

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This damaged Hellcat came ba-ck jrom Chichi Jinui August Sth. a tribute to the American uorkmen who built it and to the American boy who flew it . . . Lt. (jg) Joseph W iednuin ' eathei- at the aiicliorage was foul, but forty sacks ol mail from home did manage to come aboard. Now, after weeks of waiting, Ed Pyktel, S2c, would find out whether or not he was father of twins; and Durrance, CSF; Hasiuk. Sic; Messick, S2c; Lange, ACMM; Ellis, MM2; Meade. CMM; Harvey, EM3c; Russell, SK2c; Rose, EM3c; Pay Clerk Fowler and Lt. D. S. Smith all awaited mail call for a favorable report on the boys they were expecting. Meade and Messick alone drew girls, hut their relief was just as apparent, their smiles were just as high, wide and handsome, and their delivery of cigars just as graceful and earnest as the other chest-expanding papas. Now came the mission, after the weather had cleared and loading was completed. Big Ben joined her comrades: the carrier Hornet, flagship; the light carrier afco ,- the crusiers Santa Fe, Mobile, Biloxi and Oakland. In the screen steamed twelve destroyers; valiant workhorses of the fleet, deserving more than honorable mention. Tlie Maury, Craven, Gridley, Helm, McCall. hard. Cahrette, Bell, Burns, Boyd, Bradford and Brown filled the dangerous stations on the outer circle. The force sped for the Bonins. and for the second time within a month, enemy search planes failed to detect a pow- erful carrier force approaching the islands. At 9:30 the morning of August 4th, a powerful fighter sweep again sur- prised the Japs. ])rowled about on reconnaissance, strafed shipping and airfields, played havoc in general, mostly without effective opposition. A Japanese convoy of five large cargo vessels, eight to ten barges and luggers, with an escort of four or five destroyers, was discovered steaming northward for the mainland of Japan, near the island of Ototo Jima. There were also seven or eight large cargo ships in the harbor of Futami Ko. at Chichi Jima. A light cruiser was underway, leaving the harbor. Thirty-five of Big Ben ' s pbuies took immediate flight and tore into the cruiser and the shi|xs in the harbor. Ens. Jack Kehoe registered a damaging hit on the cruiser ' s bridge, despite the vessel ' s frantic defensive maneuvers. Other ves- sels were left burning. Hurriedly twenty more j)lancs, half of them dive-bomber.s. thundered from Big Ben ' s flight deck in swift pursuit of the

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with American youth, headed in waves toward the shore. Three hundred dive-bombers and torpedo planes were ex- ploding destruction on Japanese lines, a thousand yards from the beaches. As the first landing barges grounded and the troops began to pour ashore, the Japs opened up. Bui a special strike squadron from every carrier in the force had been waiting for just this. Now those Hellcats and Hell- divers stormed down on enemy trenches, on mortars, on mobile artillery and on tanks, enshrouding them with lead and explosives. By 10 a. m. the first wave of troops was a mile inland and the tanks were coming ashore. Throughout the day the ca])tain kept Franklins men in- formed of the invasions progress. Army officers, who had expressed themselves as uneasy, a few hours before, were now filling the radio with such fervent remarks as Your support of landing well timed and effective . . . Heavy air strikes during the last four days and especially today iiave left nothing to be desired. There were few spoken words among the men of Big Ben about what had gone on ; Mech ' looked at plane captain, engineer looked at gunner, and grinned. But here the feeling was born that Big Ben was earning her jdace as a fighting unit to be classed with the best. The day after the invasion of Guam. Big Ben distributed her last bombs in two final strikes by Air Group Thirteen and set her course for Saipan, where Japanese and Marines were still locked in a struggle to the death. At sunset, Franklin anchored in the open roadstead off Saipan. dis- dainful of the nearby enemy, to go through the ordeal of loading bombs and rockets from a supply ship in a tossing sea. Throughout the night artillery flashed on Tinian, six miles away, and flares lit the mountains of Saipan. By 6:30 a. m. more than a hundred tons of bombs and rockets were aboard. Three minutes after the last bomb touched the deck. Big Ben weighed anchor and was bound south with the task group to meet the tanker fleet and refuel at sea. Task Grouj) 58.2 was now joined by the two other task groups which had assisted in the leveling of Guam. As Task Force 58, without any decimal points, the merged groups became a fleet which could sink any navy in the world. Westward and south it steamed, for the islands of the Palau Group. The words in the air for weeks had been : Next the Philippines, but the key islands in the Palau chain must be conquered as bases before that invasion could be attempted. This cruise, the mission of Task Force Fifty- eight was primarily reconnaissance, secondarily the de- struction of enemy aircraft, shipping and installations. Big Ben had been assigned a full share of all objectives. On July 25th, Franklin s flying fighters were swarming all over the islands of Babelthaup, Koror, Arakabesan and Malakal. Three enemy planes were knocked down; the air- strip at Babelthaup was demolished; a small oiler, a lugger, and a cargo ship were sunk. Ens. J. J. Jimmy ' ' Langford. Jr.. in his Hellcat, made a photographic run over Babelthaup which won him the Distinguished Flying Cross. Five times, on a straight course, at one thousand feet and through in- tense flak, he roared across that island to accomplish his mission. During tli iiext two days nearly two hundred and fifty combat and |)hotogra])hic sorties were flown from Big Ben. Two bombers were lost in combat but their crews were saved. Two fighters were lost, and Ens. Robert H. Martin, of Rutherford, N. J., died in one of them as he crashed into the sea while landing. The other pilot was saved. The mission accomplished, the task force swung eastward on July 28th, then north on a course to Saipan. Captain Shoemaker had a message of appreciation for the crew. In the Franklin Foriim, he reminded his men that he had told them in Newport they would be in the Pacific war with Big Ben in six months. He was proud that Big Ben was here, proven ready for battle, carrying out the same assignments as veteran carriers, and equally well. Proud too, he was, of Big Bens offensive weapon, its super-long- range battery, Air Group Thirteen. But. to quote him ver- batim, without a smart, efficient ship, the air group would be impotent — unable to show its high quality; and without a highly competent air group the most experienced carrier would be ineffective. That is why I have repeatedly stated that none of us in the Franklin has a non-essential job, be- cause the bombs and the bullets that the airplanes carry won ' t hit the Japs with scheduled regularity unless all hands carry out our duties with courage and determination. As your command ing officer, I want you to know you have all lived up to my greatest expectations and that, come what may. I have complete confidence in you . . . The Franklin already had another assigned mission when Task Group 58.2 arrived off Saipan and dropped anchor in Garapan Roadstead August 1st to take aboard bombs, rockets and fuel. She would join Rear Admiral J. J. Jocko Clark ' s Task Group 58.1 and jiroceed to Iwo Jima to destroy enemy aircraft and shipping in the vicinity of the Bonin Islands, which must be kept ineffective if the invasion of the Mari- ainias was to proceed successfully.

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August 5th, 1944 . . . It cost American lives to destroy these Japanese ships in Chichi Jima Harbor convoy, but only one bomb hit was registered on this flight. At -i p. m. a third strike of forty planes went out, deter- mined to draw blood. This attack was well-planned and perfectly coordinated. The fighters strafed three destroyers, two of which blew up and sank. The third stopped dead in the water, on fire. The dive-bombers left two cargo ships burning. Nine torpedo planes attacked and registered nine hits out of nine torpedoes dropped. Four big cargo ships sank beneath the waves. Flying conditions were bad, making further flights too hazardous. During the night cruisers and destroyers of Franklin s screen raced ahead and finished off the convoy. Of 18 to 20 Japanese ships, only one old-type destroyer may have escaped. Though it had been a bad day for the enemy, there were several sadly empty seats at Big Ben s mess tables that night. Ens. Roger . L ' Estrange. the laughing boy whose brother was a major of Marines fighting on Guam, crashed in the ocean after his Hellcat had been struck by flak from the Jap- anese destroyers. Lt. Ancil C. Hudson, who had left his wife and year-old daughter in Kentucky, failed to return from the last strike. The right wing of his Hellcat was blown off by flak and the plane dove into the sea. Six strikes were scheduled against Chichi Jima for August 5th, a day that brought dismal flying weather. At dawn, twenty-five Hellcats, Helldivers and Avengers took off from the rain-drenched flight deck. They left three cargo ships sinking in the harbor and strafed another, ten miles to the west. A special search group that day, flying toward Japan. 500 miles north, located new targets. Comdr. Dick Kibbe. in his Helldiver. escorted by Ens. R. F. Moose Bridge, in his Grumman, met and bracketed a Betty bomber, 240 miles from Tokyo, and shot it down. Returning, this pair also sank three landing craft, bearing troo])s from Japan to Two Jima. The radio station on Muko Island was knocked out by another team. But two of Big Ben ' s planes did not return. Lt. Comdr. C. B. Holstrom. from Washington state, a graduate of An- napolis and the executive officer of his squadron, together with his gunner, Walter J. Brooks, Jr., from 41st street, in New York, were plunged in their Helldiver into Chichi Jima Harbor by A. fire. Lt. (jg) H. F. McCue ' s torpedo plane, with aircrewmen Hevey and Robinette aboard, crash-landed in the sea after being hit by flak. The words missing in action were written alongside the names of these shipmates, although covering fighters reported that a rescue submarine had headed in their direction. Nearly two months later Lt. McCue was returned aboard. But alter D. Hevey, a ankee from the hills of North Attleboro. Mass.. and his comrade. Ralph T. Robinette, a lad with the Southern drawl of North Carolina, died in action that day. Heavy weather made further flights impracticable so the task group set its course southward for Eniwetok. Three small Japanese vessels blundered into the force through the fog. Two destroyers of the screen took them under fire and they sank at once, hardly a mile from Big Ben. No prison- ers were obtained. In the afternoon an Emily was chased in the direction of the formation by the combat air patrol. As the Jap came out of the clouds Big Ben ' s gunners, and every gun in the fleet, opened up. Due to poor visibility some gun crews were firing at one of the friendly fighters. In the confusion the Ja]) fled into the clouds and the Hellcat crashed in the sea. Happily the pilot was soon rescued, uninjured, and a few minutes later the Emily was shot down by an alerted plane of the air patrol. Early in the morning of August 8th, the task group arrived in Eniwetok lagoon, after more than a month of combat operations. Big Ben, along with the other carriers, cruisers and destroyers of the group, received this climactic dispatch from .Admiral Clark: We are at the end of a long and arduous cruise. In the campaign of the Mariannas many damaging blows have been struck at the enemy. It is with great pride that I can tabu- late the record of the Task Group 58.1 as having contributed its full share. To all hands: Well Done!