Franklin (CV 13) - Naval Cruise Book

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Captain Gehres presents the Purple Heart to Fireman Dan Cummings Some of the twenty thousand visitors uho were aboard the Franklin on Navy Day. October 27th. 1945

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ABOVE: Big Ben ' s officers and men pay tribute to America ' s war dead, in Rockefeller Plaza . . . BELOW: Captain Gehres, Comdr. Taylor, Father O ' Callahan, and Comdr. Hale, stand in salute as taps is sounded

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On Memorial Day, May 31st, the Franklin s crew stood at attention in Rockefeller Plaza, by the model of The Fight- ing Lady — an Essex class carrier — while Father O ' Callahan, on a nationwide radio broadcast, held memorial services for the gallant men who would not come back from the battlefields and ocean wastes over which World War II was fought. Some of the men commenced thirty days ' leave in June. Three hundred new men had been sent by the Navy to take over ship ' s duties while they were away. As X Division, these youngsters worked hard through the summer; they held promise of being real sailors when Big Ben sailed again. Some of them had friends who had died on the Franklin. One lad, Henry Syrek, newly enlisted, remembered his brother Frank Syrek. a iation ordnanceman. who died on her decks three months before. On June 20th the remaining rewards were presented. Ten days later, June 30th, Captain Gehres was detached to be- come the commander of the Naval Air Station. San Diego, California. Comdr. Taylor was detached to be the command- er of the Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Me., Comdr. Henry H. Hale became the new commanding officer. In July, as the navy yard worked ceaselessly, and Big Ben began to look like her trim self again, the men of the ship were hard at work preparing for their next cruise. Hundreds of men were away at Damage Control School, at fire-fighter school, at schools fitting them for more responsible posi- tions. But in August, 1945, the little yellow men who thought to rule the world begged for mercy. Witli peace and demobilization the men of the 704 Club faded away; they were men with long sea service whose hearts were still in the homes they had fought to preserve. New faces, young men from the training stations, came to take their places. On Navy D ay, 1945 — October 27th, thousands of visitors were shown over Big Ben. Tlie new carrier. Franklin D. Roosevelt, across the pier, being commissioned by Presidejit Truman, was not so crowded as the veteran of the Pacific. On January 23rd, 1946, in Washington. D. C, Father Joseph O ' Callahan, chaplain courageous, and Lt. Donald A. Gary, received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman. Lt. Gary, still on Big Ben. was proudly greeted when he returned by shipmates who were happy that he had been accorded this fitting recognition. Father O ' Callalian was no longer aboard, now serving on I be USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, but his old shipmates on the Franklin arc still prf u(l to have served beside him. As repairs neared completion in Aj)ril, 1946, and officers and men alike began to look forward to the shakedown cruise and joining the Fourth L ' nited States Fleet, dis- ap|)ointing news came. Due to the reduction of naval ap- propriations it was necessary to transfer the Franklin to the inactive 16th Fleet, — for Operation Zipper and the preservation j)rocess that prepares warships for deactiva- tion during the |)eace-time years. After she arrived at the U.S. Navy Yard Annex, Bayonne, N. J., Commander Hale was detached on June flth for duly at the Naval Ordnance Depot, Inyokern, California; the Commander could look back on an eventful cruise since the day he reported aboard in August, 1914, through the months as Navigator when he hardly left the bridge in some of the tensest actions of the war, the succeeding months as Air Officer (busiest and most hectic job on a carrier), and finally a year of command while the biggest repair assignment in naval history was being accom|)lished by the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard. This repair job, it might be noted, was under the supervision of Ship ' s Sujjcrintendent J. M. McMullen. Lieutenant Com- mander, LI.S.N., and was completed on 15 June. 1946. The new Commanding Officer, Commander Clarence E. Dickinson, U.S.N., was a veteran combat pilot at 33. with a brilliant record of firsts and holder of three Navy Crosses: pilot of the first naval aircraft to shoot down a Japanese plane — a Zero at Pearl Harbor, on December 7th, 1941; three days later on December 10th, 1941, he roared down in his Douglas Dauntless (SBD) divebomber to a subsequently confirmed kill of the first major Japanese submarine in the war — the 1-170, barely 125 miles off Pearl Harbor. His third Navy Cross was won in a daring attack on the Japanese cruiser Kaga at Midway, in which he registered three direct hits. Under Commander Dickin- son, an officer thoroughly familiar with the value of pre- paredness, and the cost of it ' s lack, preservation measures were carried out with characteristic Navy thoroughness, de- spite the dwindling numbers of the crew. On about November 1st, 1946, when the last hatch will be sealed tight, and the last line made secure, a skeleton crew of seventy men and six officers will take over their watch. There she will wait beside the dock — still the United States Ship Franklin. Big Ben the Flattop, a proud fight- ing ship of a fighting Navy. So That Is Her Stokv . . . Perhaps a new generation of sailors uill man her decks; sailors of a newer day, folloiving in the gallant pathways of the departed men who fought aboard her. She will take them all to her heart: again her spaces will echo to noise and laughter and the sound of men at work. But in the evenings, where she looms dark and grim ngainsl the sky. alungside the wharf in a quiet, peat-e-time navy yard, men who love ships will look al Inr limodnig hulk and know thai Big lien is reinemlienng . . . Reniemhering those hoys, so gay and brave, who saileil her into hallle . . . their voices, ihcir laughter, their tears. They became a part of her, as she became a par! of them. The years arc long and memory is short: the world will soon forget. Big Ben remembers . . .