Franklin (CV 13) - Naval Cruise Book

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to land as best they could on the airfield at Dulag while it was under attack. Later all made their way back to the ship. except Lt. (jg) Robert F. Brooks. One wheel of his Hellcat had been shot away; he bailed out over Leyte Gulf near land, but was not found. It took twelve of them to get Bobby. . . . The same day, a sad one for Big Ben, Lt. Raymond B. Cook ' s Helldiver failed to return. Ray Cook, of Palmyra, N. Y., and his gunner, ' illiam B. Butler, of Cincinnati, Ohio, were marked missing. Also night fighter Warren Wolf, of White Plains, N. Y., on being catapulted into the darkness to intercept a Jap bomber, spun directly into the sea. Warren, a handsome, cheerful boy, who grinned at danger, was car- ried under the water by his plane; of Lt. Wineger ' s three night chicks only one was left now — Tony Martin. A message from General MacArthur to the fleet on Oc- tober 29th said that the Army now has established its air forces on Leyte and would assume all responsibility for bombing island targets. Navy planes would attack island targets only when permission had been obtained from the Army. However, during the following morning, there were numerous reports of enemy aircraft and the combat air patrol had been busy. None had closed within 30 miles of the task group, but the double watch was set on the guns. At 2:00 p.m. the radio room reported a fleet tanker force 50 miles away under air attack; Franklin at once launched twelve Hellcats to go to its aid. Hardly had they left the deck when a small group of Jap planes, which the combat patrol had been chasing for the last half-hour, appeared near the formation. They had originally been detected 75 miles to the northwest, high in the air: the combat air patrol, guided out to intercept, failed to spot the deceptively camouflaged Japanese planes. All the way in to the ship the fighters had flown within a mile or two of the enemy, but unable to register a Tallyho. Now. at ten miles, they were visible to the task group, three or four thousand feet in the air. The destroyer Bagley, fueling alongside, cast off at 2:17 p.m. The cruisers and destroyers of the screen closed in tight around the carriers, Franklin, Enterprise, Belleau Wood, and San Jacinto. The course was changed ninety degrees to the left, putting the attack on the sterns of the flattops. Now, at six miles, every five-inch in the formation opened up and the black bursts of exploding shells began to spot the sky around the Japs. One minute later, two miles away, the six enemy planes nosed over in their dives. Two hundred forty mm. muzzles took up the battle and [ e|)per-like dots covered the western sky. Finally the twenty ' s ojjened as the Japs whipped close. A Judy bomber, in flames, dove at Big Ben and missed, crashing in the water amidships, starboard. His bombs and plane exploded on impact with the water and the big flat- top shook with the concussion. Now a Zeke came slanting . suicide plane thai missed has just exploded in the water li lii lien . . miss, hurtles down at the flii ht deck, U ' ith Franklin s u,unners shiiiiiini . hid her. in fliuues. ihiil will nut al him erer inch ij the i( av-

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See em? . . . ' I ' liat ' s the way lo llic cruisers, boys . . . ' He was flying down over llie Japs, drawing their fire, and the hursts of flak in the evening sky directed the American warships to their targets. A hrave man w-as Rocket 77. Before the moon rose the last Jaj)anese warship of tht group was on tlie muddy bottom of tiie Pacific, smashed by crui.ser gunfire. As the task grouj) steamed south. Jap de- struction coniph ' lc 111 liic ninili. the captain spoke solciiiiiU and proudly to iiig Beifs tense crew: You will never forget today. Today. Oclohcr 2Sth. 1911. we luive defeated the Japanese Navy in one of the decisive sea battles of history . . . Tlieii he turned the speaker over to tlie fliers who had cliinlied from Franklin ' s deck. ' lien the men off watch that night rolled into tlieir liunks they uere as jiroud as (Captain Shoemaker — they had ])ut those planes in tlie air and kept em there . . . October 26th was spent in contacting tiie tanker group and refueling. Meantime complete reports were pouring ii; of the far-flung Battle for Leyte Gulf. The Japanese Second Fleet, attacking Vice Admiral Kinkaid ' s escort carriers, withdrew at the last moment, after sinking the Gambier Bay, two de- stroyers, and three destroyer escorts. The Japanese admiral had reached his decision at 11 a.m. and steamed north to San Bernardino, passing through the strait at midnight, ev- ery ship in his squadron damaged by destroyer torpedoes or air attack. As the fast battleships of the United States Third Fleet passed the straits at 1 :00 a.m. only one crippled Japanese cruiser lagged behind. It disintegrated .so swiftly under the sixteen-inch guns of the super-battleships that not until some of the stunned survivors were pulled out of the water was it known to be a cruiser and not a destroyer. To pursue the group of enemy warships into the heavily mined straits would be imprudent, so . dmiral Halsey contented himself with launching heavy air assaults over the escape route through the islands. The Japanese force beaten in the Suragaio S traits had truly been annihilated. Only one crippled battleship made its way back into the Sibuyan Sea and it was sunk by air attack before Admiral Kinkaid could take a jiicture of the darn thing. As a fighting force the Imperial Japane. e Navy had ceased to exist. MacArthur ' s beachheads were secure and no power on the face of the earth could stop America ' s re- conquest of the Philippines. Franklin and Task Group 38.4 steamed baik lo the Leyte area the next day. furnishing combat air patrol for the trans- ports in the Gulf, and launching search sweeps for Ja|)anese warships still trying to escape. Sixteen Hellcats, each armed with a . SOO-pound bomb, located a cruiser of the Aoba class uith two destroyers, south of the island of IMindoro. P ' our direct bomb hits and fourteen rockets were slammed into the cruiser. It was left blazing, leaking steam, and listing heav- ily to port. The two destroyers were damaged. Halt an hour later another fighter sweep, launched by the Enter prisr. ar- rived to finish them ofl. The two destroyers were still there, one already abandoned by its crew. The cruiser was never seen again, almost certainly sent to the bottom by Big Ben s strike. The airmen from the Big F. made strafing runs o ei the destroyers, leaving them both sinking. Ll. J. B. Johnson, coming ihrouiih hatch on the Flight deck of the Franklin . . . Johnny ' s experiences were so numerous and unusual that Ouentin Reynolds wrote him up in a Collier ' s article During the 2;!th and 29th of October heavy calls were placed on the Fleet ' s fighter squadrons by MacArthur s em- battled forces. Gombat air patrol was llown over Leyte. and searches were conducted off the island of Samar for carrier pilots shot down in the previous actions. The Hellcats shot down eight Oscars and one Zeke which were trying to attack the transports in Leyte Gulf. ' eather was rainy and the new- ly constructed airfields at Dulag and Tacloban on Leyte were in poor condition. Crack-ups were frequent on the muddy fields, and often grounded pilots were under bombing attack as the Japs continued to slip in groups of bombers to strike the invasion forces. Oil the evening of the 28th, six of Franklin ' s patrolling Hellcats attacked twelve Jap fighter planes at dusk. ' hen the Oscars had been driven away. Big Ben s airmen were forced Flight ileck en-US arming a deekloiid . . . . ote rorAv .s being Itiacled ( n Hellcats . . . Air Group 13 was One of first to use this weapon against Japanese

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(lowti ill ;i suicidal |iluiif;f. at over llircc liiindiril miles an hour. ISig Ben ' s yuniiers luinj; jrrinily to their mounts, lirinp to the hist. Fhimini!;, the pilot dead at his controls, tracers il|i|]lni; liiiles in the plane, nothing seemed aide to slop it. Down into Franklin ' s llij;hl deck it dove, lieside the after end of the island. terrific explosion shook the slii|) and she lurched in ai;onized protest. A mighty cloud of smoke and lire shot up from the thirty-foot crater in the flight deck, flames licking swiftly at the nearl)y planes on the hangar and flight decks. Gunners at their stations were Idinded hy the fumes, scorched hy the llames; two dozen men had al- ready died. A third plane, anolher Judy. svve])t low over Big Ren. dropping his lOOO-pound liomli, but this one missed — missed the island by feet and exploded in the sea. The Jap, still un- der heavy fire from Big Ben ' s forward batteries, swerved his plane to the left and crashed on the Might deck of the BeUeuu W ood. Two more suicide planes dived at the San Jacinto, but both missed. The final Jap aimed at the Enterprise but was blasted by Big Ben ' s gunners and the ships of the screen, exploding in mid-air. Thus ended the first Kamikaze ' suicide attack on major United States warships. On the Franklin gunners stood doggedly by their mounts, choking in the thick sray smoke, awaiting the next attack. CK , was out of commission. Init the crew stood by. while I.t. Vic Buhl and his technicians fought through darkened con- fusion to get the vital radars searching again. Electricians labored over their control boards, trying to clear them of faults. L ' nder the cool direction of (!omdr. Benjamin Moore and (iomdr. Le Favour, the Damage (!onlrol Department, assisted by hundreds of willing hands, sprang into action. Hoses appeared magically on the flight and hangar decks. Sprinkler curtains erected walls of water on the hangar deck, isolating the burning area. Foam extinguishers and fog noz- zles in the hands of the fire-fighters, beat back the flames. Flight deck crews jetlisoned dozens of planes, before fire could reach their hundreds of gallons of gasoline. Fire mar- shals Caldwell and Graham, with the officers and men of the repair parties, ignoring all dangers, had the fire under con- trol after forty-five minutes of desperate fighting. Twenty minutes after the explosion, while courageous parties of men were groping through the smoke and water that had gained access to the lower decks, searching for trapped comrades, trying to clear the passages down to the engineering spaces of water, another awful explosion wrenched the decks. Gasoline from wrecked planes on the flight and hangar decks, leaking through a damaged bomb elevator, had reached the third and fourth decks. Vaporizing, it had exploded. The second explosion warped and twisted steel bulkheads, hurled men helter-skelter, killing many by concussion alone. .So perished Joseph Esslinger. machinists ♦ FIdcli hursls (1(1 llic sky, as a third stiicidc plane, over Franklin, drops liis hori ' h it missed hy jeet — hejore lie dires into the Belleau If Ood ' s deck