Franklin (CV 13) - Naval Cruise Book

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C H A 1 T E K ONE BIG BEN IS BORN On December 7th, 1942, the first anniversary of the stupid and infamous aggression which plunged the United States into giolial conllict, the keel was laid of the U. S. S. Frank- lin, an airjdane carrier of the Essex Class, in a graving dock of the Newjjort News Shipbuilding and Drydock Com- pany, on the shores of the Atlantic, in Virginia. Most of the lads who one of these days wouKl man the ]ilanes that would thunder across her deck into enemy skies or who would push her planes, load her bombs, fire her guns, were still in school or working at home — though a handful ot them, even now, were with a hardpressed fleet fighting for Guadalcanal, and others were off Africa, forging the steel noose which one day would throttle the men who ruled with horsewhips. But none dreamed that a ship was born that morning which they would sail and fight through one hundred and two thousand comliat miles in five major Pacific campaigns; a ship whose warbirds would send scores of Japanese ships and hundreds of Japanese planes to destruction; a ship whose bombs would sink the mighty carrier Zuiho and a dozen other warships. This was to lie the carrier on whose decks they would live through the thunder of exploding bombs with enemy planes crashing all about them, where they would fight and die to save her from a holocaust ol fire. Four times they would suffer with her in battles where the Jap broke through and from the last battle sexen hundred and four of them would sail her thirteen thousand miles and write into history the story of the most heavily damaged warship ever to reach port under her own power. Home from the very shores of Kyushu, shattered but un- daunted, eager to return and avenge her dead. These early days after the keel was laid knew not the noise of combat action, but they were far from peaceful as workmen and engineers toiled at top sjieed. under the sun and by the glare of electric lights at night, hastening the giant carrier ' s construction. It was not a simple task of providing a hull to support the eight hundred and eighty foot ilight deck . . . almost as long as three regula- tion football fields. In ten months she must be forged by master American craftsmen into almost a sentinent being, nearly 30,000 tons of warship. Her topmast would tower 150 feet above the water; the ' idth of her beam would be 106 feet; the massive flight deck would rise 60 feet above the sea. Four engines would be installed, with the power of 150,000 horses, to thrust her through the water at any speed up to 32 knots with ease, and for days on end. There musi be huge tanks for fresh water, for salt water, for fuel oil, for high-octane gasoline, lubricating oil — • great generators not only to supply enough power to light a city but also to furnish that essential force to turn the guns, swing the rudder, raise the swift ten-ton elevators which hauled the planes from hangar deck to flight deck. This power would keep radio and radar alive, run the ven- tilators, spin the fans, hoist the fifteen-ton anchors and — what was also important — cook the meals in the great modern galleys. Thirteen quadrujjle mounts of 40 mm. machine guns would bristle from her gun galleries and island structure. Forty-six high speed 20 mm. machine guns would guard her flight deck and twelve five-inch rifles would add a lethal five-mile punch to her armament. So Big Ben was born, ten months prior to her launching on October 14th, 1943, when Captain Mildred A. Mc- Afee. Director of the WAVES, splashed the traditional magnum of champagne against the massive bow and the dock was flooded to lift her gently from the chocks until she floated in the sea. Now speed became ever more vital as the 2,500 officers and men who would compose her crew were being as- sembled from all over the fighting world, as well as from more peaceful, but sweating, training bases. A carrier — first and last — is a mobile base for her war- planes; her fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo planes. All the .seemingly endless preparations, from the moment the first rivet was pounded into the keel, focused on the day when the ])laiies could thunder off the flight deck to take the skies over an enemy target. Captain James M. Shoe- maker, U.S.N., a naval aviator, now designated to be Franklin s first Commanding Officer, knew well his task and Big Ben ' s mission. Commander D. L. Day. also a naval aviator, would be Executive Oilicer: her first Air Officer. Commander Joe Taylor, had won the Navy Cross in New Guinea and had won it again as the flying commander of a torpedo plane squadron in the battle of the ( oral Sea. Then, too, the 600-odd petty officers and chief petty officers who were to be the backbone of her crew began to assemble at the Receiving Station, Newport ,News, Va, in December, 1943 — scarcely a year after her keel was laid. Practically every man of the 600 was a veteran of two years of history ' s toughest naval war. One chief water- tender had helped bring the cruiser New Orleans out of a flaming Pacific battle i n whicli her bow had been blown

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BIG BEN THE FLAT TOP . . . stood on the dock and set down my seabag. Then I pushed my hat hack on my head and just looked. There she was . . . my ship. No name, no planes, no bridge, no guns. Just a great, big hull — the biggest hunk of steel I ' d ever seen in my life. It looked like a floating table top. On that I was going off to fight a war ...

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Captain James M. Shoemaker, U. S. N., on the Navigation Bridge asunder by enemy torpedoes; others were familiar witli the grim road to Murmansk. Some, like Old Bean Har- rison, came from the heroic Old Lexington; there were Paul and Baker who had fought on the Enterprise. Many had come from the ships that stood off the Leaches at Salerno, or from the Armed Guard ' s crews that dueled with Goering ' s Junkers in Norway ' s icy waters. Tiiese men had met the enemy in fierce engagements around the blazing world, and they knew him. Tlie 50 officers first assembled were for the most part, young reserve officers, with a sprinkling of Naval Academy men and ex-chief petty officers, but veterans all. The next step for this nucleus crew was to report to New- port, R. I., where Franklins crew would be trained for a month as a unit in the then-new Precomissioning School for Large Combatant Ships. From the day of their arrival there, December 7th, 1943, Newport Training Station was disappointing to many of the men. To them the principal mentors on this station seemed to be ancient chief petty officers of the peace-time Navy, recalled from retirement for this shore duty, who apparently did not understand that this was really a war and not the Junior Miss affair that 1918 had been from the Navy ' s standpoint. The super- regulation Gl haircuts meted out to everyone, the rigidly enforced regulations (such as no smoking on the streets, shore leave up at midnight), the general atmosphere of Newport in December, 1943, left nearly every man with a bitter feeling that was not soon forgotten. They knew this was a brief respite from sea duty and battle; it could not but rankle when they suddenly found themselves again being treated as boots. But the training was excellent. A carrier — $60,000,000 w orth of her — is a complex thing, requiring a lot of learning even to find one ' s way around. Using models and blueprints, skilled instructors taught every man the details of his ship. He learned how to find his place of work, the amusement center, the hospital, church, library, restaurant, sleeping quarters, and all the other factors that make a ship a sailor ' s home. Comdr. Taylor, now far from his action in the Coral Sea, frowned and fretted as he made shipshape the Air Organization Book, heart and soul of a carrier ' s plan for action. Comdr. H. S. Speed Cone. Supply chief, never stopped in the swift well-organized activities which were to win for his department many compliments as one of the best sup]dy jobs in precommissioning history, setting a record which remains unequalled, for Franklin s outfitting was completed in 66 days. Comdr. F. C. Agens, Engineering Department head, newly returned from the Pacific, found time from the task of readying Big Ben ' s machines, so ably started by his assistant, Lt. Comdr. T. J. Greene, to instruct even the deck watch officers in the intricate machinery they would control from ihe Bridge. Comdr. Day oversaw the huge operation and kept order forging ahead where confusion would have been so easy as to be almost excusable — even in such an epoc-making emergency as a world war. Captain Shoemaker first met his men at Newport. His introduction of himself deserves a niche not only in the