Franklin (CV 13) - Naval Cruise Book

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that lapped the enemy ' s shores, would be decided an issue which armchair strategists had declared could have Itut one outcome. Fleet-based aircraft would meet shore-based air- craft, on even terms. This would be no hit-and-run missior.. Carriers would slug it out for days witii dozens of bases on shore, pitting their hundreds of planes against thousands the enemy had at his instant command. The stakes would be the lives of a half-million soldiers and the fate of an empire. Admiral Halsey reckoned on the typhoon which would sweep across the enemy coasts a day before Task Force Thirty-eight ' s warplanes. He knew it would disrupt com- munications, ground enemy search planes, make detection of the fleet difficult. On October 9th, 1944. the Third Fleet steamed in three formidable groups 100 miles south of Okinawa ' s teeming harbor and airfields. 200 miles east of Formosa. The autumn rains and mist of the Central Pacific shrouded the ominous black and slate grey warships. Half a dozen Jap search planes had fallen to the guardian Hellcats without a glimpse of the fleet. In the afternoon 200 rocket-firing Hellcats climbed from a dozen flight decks and plunged like a bullet at the heart of the Japanese defense — the airfields and hangars. What the Japanese called their radar failed again. A few bewildered Zeros were shot down over their own airfields, then hell exploded in front of yellow faces as the American fighters thundered in. Hangars were demolished. Dozens of planes were ablaze on as many air-strips. Revetments were strafed. Barracks flamed. When the fighter sweep landed at sunset the disrupted, smoking defense of the island must have been a headache to the frantic Japanese commander. Nip radios crackled and whined. Air stations on the home island of Kyushu, 350 miles north, looked hastily to their defenses. Squadrons of replacement planes warmed up on fields at Kobe, Nagoya, Nagasaki, Tokyo. Nervous, slant- eyed pilots trooped to their ready rooms. Up to this time, in their march across the Pacific, the flat- tops had mostly fought the naval aircraft of the Japanese. Now the Imperial Army Air Force, with its swarms of Betty and Judy bombers, its speedy Zeke and To jo fighters, was the main foe. Heretofore the carriers had assaulted smaller is- land bases, with a few airfields that could be swiftly crushed. Now the air bases of the Empire were in position to rein- force each other — only the bases close at hand could be ef- fectively neutralized. Big search planes, Kates and Emilys, squadrons of Betty Coastal installations ablaze at Okinawa

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evi ' iy mail on tlie lli|). (idiiidr. Ilalc now liciaiiif the na i- gator. Scjitcniber 21tli, 19 11-, l car Adiiiiial Davisoirs task group, with Franklin llagslii)) and guide, set its course to tlie northwest and the I ' alau group. lUithi antl llie key ( aroline islands had fallen, though fanatical .laps still hung on at Moody I ' elelieu. The stage was set for a mighty scene in the I ' acific drama. Through the air. like the voice of doom, hack over the bloody years since dark Bataan. a knell souniled lor the treacherous, cruel Japanese: 1 shall return . . . A vision of licarded. gaunt weary men. .standing unafraid, wreathed in the last grey smoke of Corregidors guns, spurred on the avengers. Every mati on Big Ben was jnoud to l)e there for his |)art in the Liberation of the Philippines. To make secure the beachheads that would be established on Leyte the Third Heet must drive into the strongest bases of the P mpire — into the jaws of the heaviest trap the Japs could close. From Okinawa, on the door-sill of Ja|)an. to powerful Formosa, south through Luzon, hundreds of air bases must be crushed into helplessness. The Imperial Navy must be smashed if it tried to interfere. For a week in the storm-swept seas east of Palau. Big Bens group awaited a rendezvous with the two other sections of the Third Fleet. Lo ng range enemy search planes flew out to reconnoiter. The combat air ])alrol ke])t the skies cease- lessly, ignoring the hazardous flying weather. One patrol of three fighters Hew into a heavy squall; two fighters came ihrough. Ho|)elessly the search planes scoured the area, but no trace of Lt. Wade H. W ' inecofT, a country boy from North (Carolina, was ever found. (Phasing a ' bandit through the murky night, Lt. Benny Miles, of Medina. N. Y., and bis Jajianese quarry suddenly disappeared I rum the radar screens while 60 miles to the southwest, over the stormy. Iilacked-oul ocean. Though John X ineger called tirelessly through the static and search ))lanes combed the area at dawn, no word was ever heard of night fighter I?enny Miles nor of the Jaj). After a week of this depressing wait orders came to move northward. On the tail of a typhoon raging toward Formosa and Okinawa, Admiral William Halsey was preparing to take the seven Essex class carriers, the ten light carriers, seven fast battleships, twenty-five cruisers and a hundred destroyers of his Third Fleet into the teeth of Japan ' s mili- tary might and strike the inner bases of the Empire. Nine thousand miles from the Third Fleet ' s homeland, in wateis Another combat photo from one of Big Bens planes . . . Okinawa

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torpedo bombers, s[)ent tbe night biokiiig for the Third Fleet. The Japanese radio, Tokyo Hose speaking, made dire |)redictions of the doom that was about to befall the rash American admirals and their reckless fleet. Night fighters took to the rain-swept sky above the blacked-out warships. Crystal ball gazers, like Lts. Ad Poat, Dave Dunlap, Bob Abell, George Cheney, with their hundreds of radarmen, joined with those others of the fleet ' s big CIC ' s, and took over the guard. ith all guns manned, the fleet waited through the night like a sprawling monster, ready to flare into action with the dawn. At sunrise hundreds of carrier planes were in the air. Men on the decks of Big Ben, men standing by their guns, men on every warship in the Third Fleet, watched the squadrons thunder off to the west and disappear. The harbors of Nansei Shota were full of Jap ships, try- ing desperately to get u]) steam and escape. Flak guns were furious in their defense. Hut nothing could stop the thunder- ing low-level attacks of the deadly eagles that had risen from the ashes of Pearl Harbor. Terrific explosions shook the island as ammunition dumps blew up. Walls of flame and smoke marked where fuel depots had stood. Blazing, sinking cargo ships and tankers dotted the harbor. But warbirds were falling, too. Lt. (jg) Joe Heinrich would never tramji his New York beat again. His Hellcat badly holed, he crash- landed at sea and was never located by his searching com rades. Lt. (jg) T. G. Norek, from the midwestern plains, and his gunner, Harry Steele, a Connecticut Yankee, died in their dive-bomber when it roared d(jwn through tiie flak to crash in flames. By nightfall a tliousand bombers, fighters, and tor|)edu planes from the carriers had pulverized Okinawa and its installations. Many days would pass before dangerous en- emy planes could fly from that quarter. That night, October lOth. the Japanese were out in force, dozens of bombers crossing and re-crossing the task groups. As they passed within range of the warships ' guns, hundreds of naval rifles and heavy machine guns would erupt in sheets of flame. Some Jap planes dropped torpedoes, all of which went wide of their mark. Others circled out of gun range. reporting the fleet ' s position, with Grumman fighters roaring through the darkness in pursuit. Task Group 38.4. with Big Ben in the lead, fueled at sea October 11th. then launched a blistering fighter sweep at Aparri seaplane base, on Luzon. All the Japanese planes found there were destroyed, along with their hangars. During that night there were few alarms, the Jap scouts seemingly having lost contact. By dawn the task groups were rejoined and the massed air squadrons left a trail of flame and de- struction the length and breadth of Formosa, untouched by war before this day. Now the first signs of organized opposi- tion appeared. A hundred Japanese aircraft, flying north- ward from Luzon to replace Formosa ' s decimated squadrons, were intercepted 70 miles away by twenty Hellcats of the patrol, guided from Big Ben by fighter director officer Bob Bruning. The Nips hardly put up a fight as the Hellcats ripped into them. For 25 miles the pursuit continued, the Japs drop|)ing one by one as the fight progressed, until the Hellcats had to turn back from over Formosa itself, as iheir gas became low. During the day squadrons of Japanese torpedo bombers came speeding out to attack. The cruiser Canberra was tor- pedoed and lay dead in the water. Few of the Japs returned to tell of this limited success, but on the Nip radio came fantastic claims of dozens of American warships being sent to the bottom. Fifteen carriers, exulted Tokyo Hose, a dozen battleships, had been sunk. 20,000 American sailors were struggling, drowning, in the cold waters off Formosa. The men of Big Ben grinned sardonically as they listened to these weird lies. All through that day, while the yellow war-lords made their boastful claims, carrier warj)lanes were heaping fire and destruction on the major bases that dotted Formosa. But Lt. K. J. ' eber ' s Helldiver did not come home to Big Ben that evening. Weber, a Loyola boy. from Chicago and his gunner. James L. Hall, of Augusta, Maine, were killed in action. And Ens. H. F. Bobby ' Jones, 21-year-old redhead from Climax, Ga.. with his guimers, Stanley P. Kajza, Wilkesboro, Pa., and Grier P. Osborne, of Peach Bottom, Pa., who had ]iut their .Avenger ' s torpedo squarely in the middle of a big Jap tanker, died when their plane exploded in mid-air. A heavy flak gun had made a direct hit. And the cruiser Houston, struck by a torpedo from a Betty, lay helpless in the water. After a heroic struggle by her crew she was taken in tow, and, with the Canberra, was proceeding slowly southward at two knots, with the small but mighty carrier Cahot standing guard. The Houston, built at .Newport News and completed only a week before the Franklin, had many a friend on Big Ben. October 13th. another day of continued heavy blows at the Jap defenses, dawned rainy and foggy, as miserable as the preceding days. But hunting was still good ashore. With the airfields and harbors in ruins, the bombers were directing iheir attentions to power plants, fuel depots, supply dumps. Thousands of tons of supplies, vital to the enemy war effort, darkened Formosa with a pall of smoke, faggots on the fu- neral pyre of an infamous nation. These were the signal fires to the hundreds of massed transports and LST ' s which were sailing froin Manus. destination: the Philippines. But two more of Big Ben ' s gallant fighters swirled down that day; Lt. (jgl Richard H. Moose Bridge, the tall boy with the three Air Medals, died in his Grumman fighter over For- mosa, and Lt. (jg) Joseph Kopman, handsome dark-haired fighter ]iilot. of Detroit. Michigan, did not return to Big Ben. There was little of the usual kidding ' in the fighter ready room that evening. Throughout Friday, Octolier 13th. enemy j)lanes attempt- ed to slip through the combat air patrol. Several were shot down, others driven away. In the evening, an hour befoie sunset, they commenced to gather in small groups, hiding in the lu ' a y banks of clouds, scattered low over the water. Through the drizzling rain patrol fighters searched for the enemy but he was hard to find, even with radars aid. Two grou])s of enemy planes, one in the clouds to the northeast and one in the clouds to the south, were about ten miles from the FranUin ' s group. M .S:00 p. m. the bugles called all hands to battle stations, but at 5:22 Admiral Davi- son secured all battle stations except the gunners when it appeared likely that the Ja])s would remain in the vicinity for hours. . t sunset, five minutes later, Big Ben was landing