Full Movie: USS Franklin: Honor Restored (Feature Documentary) | Narrated by Dale Dye

[Music] on the eve of the allied invasion of okinawa japan was entering the final phase of their desperate air strategy against british and american warships scores of young kamikaze pilots took to the skies on one-way missions destroying all in their paths including themselves from kagoshima's kokobu airfield on kyushu are eight japanese d4y3 duty dive bombers using the low cloud ceiling as cover they speed toward the american fleet just a short distance from the main shackled to the bomb rack of each attacker is a single one thousand pound pop and on this overcast march morning one american ship looms larger on the horizon than the others maneuvering just 50 miles off kyushu preparing for the invasion of okinawa is the carrier uss franklin the flagship of task group 58.2 the task group had ventured closer to the imperial mainland than any previous american strike force an opportunity the enemy could not resist and her crew were about to have their metal tested in ways they never imagined the essex class aircraft carrier pride of the us navy was designed to spearhead the american offensive in the pacific and carry the weight of naval air power to the japanese wow it was the biggest thing i'd ever seen i actually thought that nobody would dare to attack anything that big i felt so safe i really thought that i was on the safest ship in the world because we had all the destroyers and other ships around us the only thing that i didn't stop and think about was if that was the ship that the japanese wanted the most another giant aircraft carrier joins the american navy commander mcafee head of the women's naval auxiliary forces swings the champagne as she crisses the new ship franklin [Music] as one of america's most modern wartime carriers franklin was commissioned on 31 january 1944 and built in the record time of just 10 months she was the sixth american warship to bear the name franklin men who served aboard franklin from her commissioning were called plank owners i was a plank owner i came aboard in january of 43. flank owner is a person who is on the ship when they initially commissioned it and that was quite a ceremonies i remember we had a lot of high officers around and that was quite an operation really our carrier air group 13 consisted of approximately 100 aircraft roman hellcat fighters drum and avenger torpedo bombers and curtis sb2c hell diver dive bombers after completing a shakedown cruise to trinidad franklin sailed through the panama canal and arrived at hawaii on 5 june 1944 her skipper 48 year old captain james m shoemaker was former commanding officer of the pearl harbor naval air station during the 7 december 1941 attack he was known to the man to be tough but fair he was tough he got what he wanted but the man was fair he was a real decent person shoemaker was a real seaguarn good skipper i won't be able to say that for the other fella attached to task force 58.2 of the fifth fleet under vice admiral raymond spruance franklin saw her first combat operations in early july with sorti carrier strikes against iwo jima guam and rota island that was designed to soften up defenses for the subsequent ground assault of the [Music] marianas [Music] [Music] i enjoyed my time truly on the franklin and good men good ship in september 1944 the franklin became the flagship of task group 38.4 commanded by rear admiral davidson and supported the invasion of peleliu and angaur islands in the palaus she crossed the equator on 20 september 1944. if i lived to be a thousand oliver forget crossing the equator punishment was pretty bad sickbay was kind of filled with people who could get hurt kind of bad they took actually took down the american flag and run up the jolly roger and rank had nothing to do with this thing here if the skipper wasn't a shell back he was treated just like the rest of the people out there as many of the officers found out they found that there was no such thing as officers privileged when you're crossing over there the first time you cross the line you get paddle line you get to eat trash or whatever they can do to you it's it's a fun time for everybody everybody gets to have their day on the evening of 13 october 1944 while cruising off formosa franklin was attacked by four betty torpedo bombers captain shoemaker dodged two torpedoes and all four betty bombers were shot down a one betty bomber approaching franklin from the port side of midship and hit by franklin's gunners and on fire slid across the carrier's flight deck and crashed into the sea to start it was coming to wide open that torpedo plane and it waited too long to drop that torpedo it just barely cleared to where it would go over the flight deck but it evidently had one wing just a tiny bit low and it tipped the end of that gun barrel and spun out across the flight deck the longer we get on that the more i realized it wasn't a place to try to make a living it was it was a job it was a tough job we had good bunch of gunners on that ship a lot of marines they could shoot [Music] in late october 1944 the franklin successfully took part in what came to be known as the battle of leyte gulf for five days the planes of admiral bull halsey's task force 38 and franklin's own carrier air group 13 rained bombs down on the japanese fleet scores of enemy ships were damaged or sunk including the 72 000 ton musashi sistership to yamato one of the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships in history in the end some two dozen enemy warships with more than ten thousand japanese officers and men aboard were at the bottom of the pacific leyte was a resounding defeat for the japanese a defeat from which the imperial japanese navy never recovered well done is an expression that you cannot do better and as far as the navy is best thing they can say to you is well done and captain shoemaker got on the horn and he said men well done we have just been through the biggest naval battle ever fought well done to the franklin crew tonight we're going to have chocolate sauce on our pudding he could hear guys roaring with laughter cleared at times square you know but thinking about it what else could he offer he offered his thanks to the ship and recognized the ship but that was a shoemaker and he was a good guy [Music] on 30 october 1944 while sailing off samar island in the philippines franklin became the prime target of the kamikaze special attack corps three japanese zekes and three judy dive bombers lifted off from an airfield on cebu to attack frank lenader escorts franklin's gunners and those aboard supporting vessels splashed four of the attackers the onesie crashed into the carrier uss fellow wood it killed or wounded 92 officers and men a second zeke hit by franklin's gunners and burning slammed into franklin's flight deck right next to number seven five-inch 38 i was on the radio with the gunners and i could hear a gunnery officer say don't shoot it's an f6f some guy had to be down south he said what you doing with them big red meatballs and about two seconds later we got hit and that was it we lost over 50 men i think that day i was very young and naive and i couldn't believe how the sailors ran up and pulled anything off that jab plane or the jab for a souvenir i was just all lies i couldn't get over that when the smoke cleared 33 of franklin's aircraft were destroyed or damaged so badly they had to be pushed overboard the human toll numbered 56 officers and men killed 30 wounded most of them putting a mattress cover with a five inch projectile put in between the legs sew it up put them on a plank under a flag say the words and kind of meant them to the deep and they were gone with the army and stuff they go over there they dig them up and they're in but there was no digging up once you went down that plank that was it you went to the bottom that's when i really started to realize that i wasn't bulletproof you know when was 17 you don't think that anything can hurt you it always happens to some other guy [Music] you can be so dang scared sometimes and yet yes when these things are happening you just snap back at it just like you can't believe it you recover quick because you got to defend yourself the franklin's short combat record was impressive at less than six months from four july through november 1944 franklin steamed 90 000 miles and earned four battle stars carrier air group 13 sank or damaged 155 000 tons of merchant shipping 35 enemy men of war were damaged or sunk totaling 300 000 tons and the franklin destroyed or damaged more than 338 enemy aircraft [Music] emerging from repairs and upgrades in early march 1945 the franklin received a new air group carrier air group 5 consisting of grumman avenger torpedo bombers curtis sb2c helldiver dive bombers and for fleet protection the grumman f6f hellcats were replaced by the faster chance fought f4u-1d corsair augmenting the navy squadrons of ward franklin were two marine corsaire fighter bomber squadrons bmf 452 and pappy boyington's former and famous black sheep squadron the mf-214 [Music] the principal changed to impact the crew however came in the form of a new commanding officer captain leslie edward garys he'd assumed command at ulithi the previous november physically a big man he would make his presence felt immediately i had about 15 commanding officers in the military and i had some real good stern ones which that doesn't bother me a bit you know you don't have to talk to me he tells me what he wants i do the job you know i worked for three animals staff photographer for him but gareth was not a commanding officer he was a bully i know more than you do and his motto was i'm a very big man i take up a lot of space don't get in my way that's not a commanding officer alienating the men from the day he took command gary's chartered himself a collision course with most of the franklin's crew he was a martinet captain leslie gary's g-e-h-r-e-s turned the crew out in their white uniforms at ulithi in the middle of the damn war and nobody nobody aboard ship were whites at that time we all were in dungarees he uh berated the crew and told us we were malingerers and uh we weren't any good and if the gunners had been any damn good they would have shot down the plane he was a mustang too an enlisted man that comes through the ranks gary was a captain which is like god on ship but he he just did not have any any empathy for the man he actually said that the plane hit us because we were lousy gunners i don't know if he ever realized how ridiculous a statement that was to be he was always looking to take a shot at shoemaker i don't like the man very much let's put it that way from the from his opening speech he thought that leslie gears was probably the greatest thing put here on earth and that we should all be very very grateful to have his services we all thought that we'd be a hell of a lot better off without him and we had good reason for it later on we found out just how bad he could really be he said uh you're incompetent you're lazy you're careless and i'm gonna do my best to shape up this crew now here are these men who just a few days before this they buried 56 of their shipmates and the implication of what he was saying you know there wasn't any dummy on that ship at that time they were all salted veterans they had been in battles they had been in typhoons they had dodged torpedoes they'd been hit by bombs and they'd been hit by a kamikaze and what i was told was that here are these men listening to their own brand new skipper basically accusing the crew of incompetence and it was their fault that their buddies had died also joining the franklin after repairs at bremerton was a 39 year old jesuit priest and mathematics professor from the college of the holy cross in worcester massachusetts father joe o'callaghan also held an honorary degree from georgetown university he'd entered the navy in 1940 and served in the mediterranean theater aboard the aircraft carrier uss ranger father joe was well liked by the men who considered him a natural leader 17 march 1945 was a sunday and father o'callaghan conducted a church service on the foxel deck the men were in the open air sitting on the anchor chains at the end of the mass father o'callaghan said we're going into the battle zone men and some of you will not survive one of the fellas in the chat line was talking about the ship's number being 13 which was unlucky and we lost something like 13 pilots and exercise and a whole bunch of 13s came in there we're going to be lucky he said if we uh if we make it back to the states not knowing what was going to happen we left ulethi and we're going up there and there's six aircraft cars and we're all going to flank speed and i looked out and you see the whale bone in front of their bowels you know we're heading towards japan and i said where are those japs now we're going to kill them i knew we were going into harm's way and each division would come up one the flight back and the officer would go down and you check your dog tags and make sure you had your dog tags on i said we're really going into something now now we got into the area near japan on the night of march the 17th saint patty's day and the japanese knew we were there they came over and lit up the sky with flares uh probably a 30 mile radius and just lit this it was like downtown uh times square type of deal and the aircraft carrier were not allowed to fire for the simple reason that all of our guns were on the perimeter of the flight deck and they would absolutely put up a very definite uh target for the japanese over the next two days franklin's crew would go to battle stations 12 times as the fleet and franklin's air groups pounded japanese airfields on the mainland the japanese in turn struck out for the fleet with special deadly emphasis on the carriers on 18 march a dud bomb struck uss enterprise uss intrepid downed a betty bomber whose bomb load missed that carrier by just a few yards a judy dive bomber targeted uss yorktown its 550-pound bomb blowing holes in her hull the next day 19 march 1945 it would be fragmented as franklin began launching her morning strike packages against kobe harbor captain gary's secured from general quarters and placed the crew on a modified condition 3 which allowed his exhausted crew a chance to eat a hot breakfast we apparently were at a position where they felt that we could relieve a portion of the gun crew to go have a bite to eat at all i'll lay in my bunk for a few minutes and i'll go to child later at 0-654 combat information center or the cic reported a bogey 30 miles distant at 0-6-57 cic reported bogey bearing 2-9-0 degrees 24 miles distant and closing we're at the same sea condition as if we were cruising off san diego as far as a dog and down the door you know and so forth and of course any thinking person would know that would be a big mistake over the next 11 minutes franklin received three more warnings of multiple bogeys closing on them but for reasons unknown captain gary's chose not to call the crew to general quarters we couldn't figure it out people down the boiler rooms even mentioned they said why did we go in condition three we're 50 60 miles off of japan they come out and attack us in a piper cub for grinding a lot finally cic reported a bogey closing from 270 degrees distance 12 miles 12 miles oh they come in 300 miles an hour how long does it take to cover 12 miles it's like nothing captain gary's at that moment called the fire control officer and alerted him to fire on any unidentified aircraft without further orders but he still neglected to call his crew to battle stations or general quarters 30 seconds later the hancock radioed franklin in the clear bogey 3-5-0 distance 10. according to captain carries this message was never transmitted to the bridge in these final tense moments 31 fully fueled and armed aircraft idled on franklin's flight deck awaiting takeoff many were loaded with 500 pound and 250 pound bombs in the new 1200 pound tiny tim aerial rocket another 21 aircraft were scattered below on the hanger deck in various stages of pre-flight readiness at eight minutes past seven uss hancock sailing one thousand yards off franklin's port theme radioed a final urgent three-word message to franklin bogey closing it didn't have any idea there was anything going on everything was normal [Music] it hit you don't really it it was like what the heck happened the table went up and chairs went up and everything fell flat on the deck the explosion blew me right up against the overhead i was blown out of my bunk and i you know i started up the ladder uh toward the gun which is shut above us and fire coming down the ladder so there's no way for me to go there is some pressure way of course it was a noise the sound was the big thing i heard a banging sound i looked up something came through the overhead i don't know what it was but it blew up fell in front of me had by that time it turned around you got a belly full of shrapnel the explosions just kept going on and on and on and we didn't know really what was happening up above at all and we didn't know whether the ship was going to sink or or what all hell broke loose there was a fire station there a fire hose and a gear with a wheel on it i turned the gear and i threw the hose out the porthole not a zip no water i realized then i think that the water mains on the ship or whatever they call them had broken we took off running aft we got back three or four compartments toward the stern and there was a rocket had come down from the flight deck down through the hanger neck and exploded between the third and fourth deck when we got near that it was burning a fire there so we turned around and ran back to the compartment where we were having breakfast and and we started to go forward they said no there's fire forward we can't go there i was running along and this fellow was with me and he said i'm not staying down here i'm going top side and he ran right up the ladder and there's a flash and he just disappeared [Music] he was there and he was gone and i was running forward in this passageway and the guy was running right behind me and there was another explosion and i looked back and there was a hole in the deck where he was you know it's that fast the bomb with its delayed fuse board through the plank punched through the admiral's galley in the gallery deck and hit the armored hangar deck hardened steel armor prevented further penetration and the bomb ricocheted upward and while that bomb was in midair it exploded adjacent to the deck edge elevator next to a fully fueled corsair parked on the hanger deck and loaded with a tiny tim rocket the scene was catastrophic it's estimated that as many as 400 sailors and marines standing in lines on the hangar deck for morning chow were killed instantly the gallery deck where dozens of aviators were waiting in ready rooms preparing for missions was smashed up flat against the flight deck within seconds of that bomb's explosion gasoline vapors from ruptured refueling lines and torn aircraft fuel tanks accumulated in the hangar and suddenly the volatile vapor exploded throughout the length of the hangar deck within a minute the fire was totally around that area in that turret this is a boxed in turret and there's a hatch it was at the point where we could get out of that hatch [Music] the man that was on the inside of that turret and go overboard if we'd had tried to go anywhere else the flames would have got us when you couldn't breathe why it was time to go and i opened that door and it was nothing but explosions and fire and smoke and nick he only been on the ship a month he came on board in pearl harbor so i told him to get behind me hang under my belt and i gave him my life jacket he didn't have a life jacket we went up to the bridge and there wasn't much room to stand around there so he snuck into the captain's cabin and i stayed in the back part of the bridge trying to keep out of the way and the opposite up they were running around circles trying to figure out what to do but nobody had any answers really the captain was racing around like a cat chasing a mouse then he went into his compartment he picked up his wife's picture and he's hugging his wife's picture and he did that twice and then he came back and he shouted orders to somebody but didn't amount to much they couldn't do anything there was very little communication with the rest of the ship when i was aboard ship i always had certain amount of anxiety uh it's an aircraft carrier where it's at war i always had apprehension and and knew what could happen if you got a bomb and on an aircraft carry the most dangerous damn ship in the world uh most vulnerable but when the actual event happened i was not scared i don't know i was just trying to save my fanny and too busy trying to figure things out on march 19 1945 a typical march winner in northern japan several crewmen told me that it was spitting snow that morning and the temperature the air temperature was cold they said the water was colder and no one wanted to go in the water unless they absolutely had to of course you have 90 feet from the flight deck to the water so that's a pretty good jump bear in mind there was 150 000 pounds i believe of a 100 octane have gas loaded on the flight deck board all the aircraft that were warming up when that fuel went it went and it was just rivers of flaming fuel everywhere one man described to me he looked into the hangar deck from his uh damage control station and he said the fire was alive he said you've really you can't appreciate 100 octane fuel burning in that magnitude that huge huge massive fire and flame he said you can't appreciate unless you see it as men fought the fire topside other dramas were unfolding below decks i just gathered myself up and went half on the third deck then i went up to the second deck and i was there i don't know how long it seemed like forever but possibly three hours in a compartment with probably 100 other men and of course eventually after a period of time smoke got to be very thick very heavy i used my t-shirt tail and my own private little water source and breathe through that it was very hard to get your breath and several of the shipmates took off their t-shirts and folded them up and urinated in them and then turn to turn the t-shirts around and breathe through it to filter out the smoke that would get down into their in the fire get down into their lungs i started saying the 23rd psalm the lord is my shepherd i shall not want and i didn't know all of it so the others chimed in between the rest of the shipmates that were confined in that area and we got the whole thing out we got into the messing compartment and there's a whole bunch of us in there we sealed the dog the doors down on either side and we're just sitting there and there was a hole about this big where they unscrewed it and it was an ear hole out there and that's what we breathed through and as a doctrine he said if you want to pray don't pray out loud you use up oxygen that way just pray yourself there was one guy that i remember over on the other other side of the compartment that started screaming we'll all be killed we'll all be killed well there was a lot of praying going on there was several people that were kind of screaming and people were trying to calm them down and it was mass confusion lieutenant gary came down and he found us down there and he found a way for us to get out you grabbed the guy's belt in front of you and he grabbed your belt and you formed like a chain getting out through the smoke and everything then he went out and he went down and he knew that ship like the back of his hand and we got into the uptakes and there was a ladder then we went up the uptakes and got up on the flight back everybody wants a head for the doors and they're excited you know jumping around whatnot i told him that i'm going to try to find an exit and if i find one i'll be back i came back so i explained to him that if we all hold on to one another's belts and don't rush at all don't push we can maneuver out slowly this is when i push my strength to yell to the crew members that you better listen to what's happening because we won't make it and they did they listen to this day it amazed me what how a 17 year old kid can control the crowd this lodge now in the other mess hall there was a lieutenant i think he was a full lieutenant that led out a crew of sailors and did the same thing i'd like to add this point the lieutenant received a medal of honor i received a navy cross and i that's one thing i can't understand to this day during the next five hours after the initial enemy bomb impact it's estimated that more than 50 of the 66 500 pound bombs loaded on the franklin's flight deck exploded among the most deadly hazards on that flight deck were 1200 pound tiny tim aerial rockets these high explosive missiles were touched off by burning fuel and roared off in every direction i was standing in this big thing went flying by i said what was that and i said it's a tiny tim i said it ain't a tiny anything franklin's executive officer commander joe taylor watched the scene unfold on the flight deck sailors marines and aviators some without firefighting training ran headlong into the smoke and fires with hoses to save the ship taylor would later write their heroism was the greatest thing i've ever seen they simply would not leave their hoses in spite of what appeared to be certain death and disaster this fellow was behind me and we were fighting the fire and he said i'm going over the side the ship's going down i said the flag's still flying i knew they'd strike the colors before they abandon ship so we're fighting the front there's an explosion and men went flying up in the air and everything and all of a sudden i couldn't hold a hose anymore and it was snaking on me so i fell on the hose and i turned around and i said you son of a [ __ ] and he ran and he ran right off the end of the flight deck you ever see anybody riding a bicycle with no bicycle underneath he never stopped running he ran right into the air and his i saw his waist and his shoulders and his head he just disappeared you know i remember being on a two and a half inch fire hose with a big marine all of a sudden the ready service room blew up right in front of us and we turned and dropped the hose and turned and ran and a big chunk of metal came down over my shoulder and i stopped and i looked over to the side and there was a helmet i ran over and i grabbed the helmet and put it on and then kept running not that it would have done any good had it hit me some of these guys really panicked and it's just running nowhere some of them were running toward the fire this guy came running out of the fire and i i said somebody else hey slow down or something to reach out and grab them by the arm and he kept going i still had the um he was so thoroughly cooked that it just came off like a chicken leg it didn't bother me at the time i just took and threw the thing over the side i guess there's a couple of different kinds of shock that can set in and i happened to get the good one i got the one where i wasn't afraid it was a real horror show because these people trying to get out they couldn't see where they were going you got planes with props churning out there you had to be there to really to really appreciate like i've said to people i could sit there and explain it to you but if you can't hear it and you can't smell it then you lose most of it you can't really imagine exactly what it was like i'm up on the flight deck it was chaotic a propeller off one of the planes a three-bladed propeller flew through the air hit the number one mount and sat like a top spinning it was just like a sickle or a sigh those blades spinning around the gasoline was just pouring off the flight deck like a fountain of gasoline and i dropped into the water which was a very bad move there was a huge explosion and floating through the air up there this first time i ever flew there was three of us and we were together all the way all the way up and all the way down he hit the water that was like hitting concrete i told the guy that cause because he had a helmet on and i told him i said unbuckle that thing you taught that if you hit the water and you get that thing buckled it's like it's like getting hung it'll break your neck i went down deep enough to get turned around by the screws so the engines were still running when i went up when i went off because the screws were turning and we're going around and around and around down there then you can't swim up because you don't know where up is you might be swimming the wrong way and you've only said just sit there and wait say hope i got enough breath for this and all of a sudden you pop up well you don't pop off one of the first ships to dramatically come alongside the franklin was the light cruiser uss santa fe at about 0-9 30. the santa fe skipper made a gutsy move and turned his ship right into the franklin they quickly became locked together and it was then that the men on the escort ship saw the carnage firsthand aboard santa fe that morning was a gutsy 22 year old photographer photographer's mate first class al bullock bullets dramatic images and film footage would go on to be ranked among the best and most historic combat imagery in all of world war ii when i first got this camera i had experience on how to operate it but now i got one and so one of the first shots i get is the carrier well i was shooting with the normal lens and i could see him pretty good and of course with the moving ship and stuff like that you could handle it but then i thought go to telephoto lens and so i pull it over to where it would be and when i'm looking through this thing it's like looking down a tunnel and i said oh he's got to be out there someplace and i'm like this but the camera is rolling when i went aboard the carrier to take pictures and i heard him say two or three guys let's get off this goddamn thing bit sinking the scene on the franklin's flight deck was chaos and horror dozens of men huddled together on the bow terrified unsure of where to go or what to do and sailors continued to die in interviewing the franklin crew one thing that kept popping up especially the guys on the fly deck was well i saw father o'callaghan doing this or i saw father o'callaghan doing that father o'callaghan asked me to help throw overboard unexploded bombs follow callahan told me to grab this fire hose and put out this fire he seemed to be as one franklin crewman put it everywhere at the same time it was just phenomenal what he did was he took a shell-shocked crew and he organized them and they became effective well bob lanter he didn't know why the chaplain was had his hands on his shoulder and i said because he was holding you down you wanted to get up and so he said well i didn't want to be transferred over to that chip on the basket because if this [ __ ] banged together they'd never find him that he was truthfully there it's a moment that robert blanchard to whom chaplain o'callaghan gave the last rights will never forget i knew the situation but i didn't realize it was that bad you know i didn't realize i was in such bad shape i knew i wasn't good but i didn't think i was in that bad shape but i really was after a while i realized gee wow i went through quite a bit by zero nine forty-five the franklin began to list heavily to starboard from the almost 3 000 tons of fire fighting water which had accumulated below decks by 100 that morning franklin was dead in the water burning drifting ever closer to japan admiral davidson had long since transferred his flag to the hancock before his departure the admiral informed captain gary's he thought there was no hope of saving the carrier at the time gary's didn't respond to davidson but in an interview years after the war kerry said he thought it was none of the admiral's damn business and with men still trapped below decks abandoning a franklin would mean certain death for hundreds of his crew by midday admiral davidson ordered the uss pittsburgh to take the franklin in tow as weary franklin crewman worked to secure the tow line exhaustion overtook them it was only when the black stewards mates on board the franklin joined in with a chorus of heave ho that the two lines started moving [Music] executive officer joe taylor later said that the black crewmen all working together and singing were the men who finally brought the towlides over with franklin undertow by the pittsburgh at two knots toward you lithie rescue efforts continued once the franklin was hit all orders throughout the fleet was for all the strike aircraft to return from japan and the fleet was formed basically to say franklin finally you start seeing destroyers coming up and trying to pick up men right alongside of it and they had a net and just not hardly enough strength to get yourself they helping you get aboard the strength was gone i spent five hours and 25 minutes in the water a lot of them couldn't swim but there was debris in the water there was rafts in the water what they call carlin floats which were like a big pallet with padding around it a lot of them were going from exposure and stuff somebody would say oh it's getting warm and usually after they said that if you looked for them a couple of minutes later they were gone they'd go to sleep and grow under it was cold it was really cold as the sun set on 19 march explosions reduced in frequency and the fires finally calmed by 22 30 that night a damage control party broke through to relight franklin's number five boiler that night this officer said they need to be relieved on the hose back there they're up on the flight deck and he said we've got to keep the fires down because the japanese fly over and they see that flame that be like a beacon for them so i'm making a hose back there and there's a fire that's burning back there but i couldn't get to actually get the hose on it but all of a sudden i saw this object that was hanging down there and i sprayed it on this object and the water would splash up under the fire in the back there well the sun came up in the morning it was a body that was hanging down so i guess he helped save the franklin too i'm sorry by dawn the next morning 20 march 1945 the pittsburgh had towed franklin 85 miles away from japan and by 1100 with boilers relit franklin was plowing forward at 14 knots gary's requested permission to cast off the tow line admiral davidson granted his request unbelievably big ben was sailing once again and under her own power but by several bogeys put in an appearance at this time the uss alaska picked up a japanese plane 52 miles north and closed a second one was reported six minutes later the task force's combat air patrol was dispatched to intercept but a japanese d4y judy die bomber once again snuck through that plane coming out of the sun and difficult to see was not positively identified until it actually dove toward the franklin marquis wilson pointed up and hollered there he is there he is and of course we looked up and and i was trained trying to train the gun mountain and we were on a list 13 degree list something like that and it was very hard to train the gun uphill and also these puffs of smoke got up here and here's an airplane flying right over the alaska right i said my god they're coming for us again [Music] about the time that we opened fire i saw the nose of the plane rise up a little bit when he let his bomb go and the bomb went right over the port stern that was why we were credited with saving the ship the carrier was spared what would have certainly been a mortal blow but as crewman of the franklin breed the sigh of relief and concluded one of the most successful naval rescue operations of all time a new and strange drama was about to unfold which even by modern standards is difficult to fathom captain gary's ordered the return of roughly 100 officers and petty officers who he deemed essential to bring franklin back to port but once they boarded the carrier they were each handed a letter that letter read the commanding officer requires an immediate explanation in writing as to when where and why you able-bodied and uninjured left this vessel while she was in action and seriously damaged when no order had been issued to abandon ship franklin's crewman many with decades of experience and most with three years of war behind them were shocked and bewildered their own skipper was accusing them of abandoning ship without cause the rest of the franklin crew aboard the cruisers and destroyers had already heard the rumblings the captain gary's planned to charge them with desertion this news spread through the fleet as fast as the fires had swept through franklin's hangar deck the previous morning additionally the accusation angered thousands of fellow sailors in the fleet who'd witnessed the catastrophe [Music] the japanese made one last attempt to target the fleet on the morning of 21 march a japanese reconnaissance aircraft spotted big ben in the fleet 325 miles from kyushu japan 48 japanese aircraft were launched including for the first time 18 japanese betty bombers configured with the new kamikaze rocket the oka or cherry blossom it's known among the allies as the baka bomb or the fool the rocket was essentially a flying warhead traveling at speeds of more than 500 knots the baca was a serious and deadly threat to the american fleet here's the actual gun camera footage as hellcat fighters from hornet bellewood decimated that japanese strike force [Music] none of the vodkas reached their intended targets none of the american ships were damaged and none of those betties returned to japan the franklin and her remaining crew were finally fully out of harm's way that afternoon captain gary's completed the first formal muster of his crew since the strike he counted 704 officers and men two days later just prior to arrival at ulithi captain gary's created the big ben 704 club representing the 704 men who mustered on 21 march requirement for the 704 club membership was that the sailor did not leave the franklin during or after the attack on 19 march now with the divided crew the remaining men aboard the franklin began the heartbreaking task of burying hundreds of their fellow shipmates but owing to the large number of dead and limited resources the franklin's crew could not conduct normal burial at sea services it was horrible because the men that were killed by that first blast were laying in two rows from the hatch going down to the mess decks all those burned bodies and uh they picked them up gi cans a lot of them you know there's burns so bad i walked in that marine locker and they had the fire in there and everything the guys were just dead in their bunks they never knew what hit them and i walked across the deck and and my feet slipped on the deck because just like you arose something you know that grease comes out of their body and it was on the on the deck yeah it was quite a ceremony it was uh kind of gets get to you you know what i mean it's a personal thing but uh then all of a sudden you know a lot of them gone and you're still there so i guess i'd been aboard probably a month and i had been told to go to a storage area under one of the aircraft elevators to pick up something and bring back to the fire room and while in the storage area i saw a line of probably 20 or 25 scoop shovels and i thought well what why would you have a scoop shovel aboard an aircraft carrier you use scoop shovels on the farm to handle green but after [Music] march the 19th i found out what scoot shovels were used for a board an aircraft carrier that had been blown up and burned up that's the way we picked up body parts and things like that in all 479 men were recovered and committed to the deep the seabourn trail of tears stretched for miles dead bodies being thrown off the ship and there was a guy standing along the rail of the santa fe and they was identifying her buddies so they float the roll up on her face and it's only that's pete that's joe that's back or whatever they were taking out their friends as they floated by the ship by the santa fe at ulithi a memorial service was conducted on franklin's flight deck crewmen who were not aboard the franklin prior to her arrival in port were not allowed to attend the ceremony those crewmen who were not members of captain gary's 704 club were transported like outcasts to hawaii aboard naval or coast guard receiving ships on 3 april 1945 franklin entered pearl harbor welcoming the ship were scores of dignitaries and senior officers who'd heard about the franklin also there to greet the ship was a contingent of u.s navy waves i can remember the people standing on the dock when we came in and they were singing and when it actually saw the ship up close their mouths dropped open and there wasn't any singing from that point on it was a group of waves that they had come down to the docks to see what it looked like and they were horrified tragically not all crewmen were welcomed back at pearl harbor hundreds of the carrier's crew those not actually aboard franklin were stunned to learn that they would never again serve aboard big ben we was all allowed to come on and get her clothing and easy to get the hell off my ship and so we was on a ship about 10 minutes and so many guys probably seen their friends and some of them told me they said well we're back on board he said no i'm not he's going to get my damn clothes and get off the ship we didn't have a chance to look it over or anything they didn't let us ever i don't i don't think we're the ones that abandoned ship was too welcome back they wouldn't let us come back with a ship they put us in hawaii i was up barbara's point on the velar station and the first night the guys were we were in regular barracks but i guess the nightmares and stuff had everybody going it was guys wrapped up in mosquito net and falling out of the beds and stuff and they were hauling everything so the next night they put us in a place called mongoose manor mongoose manor which are way way if they say hey do all the halloween you want nobody will hear you out here we was taken out in the middle of a cane field somewhere to a camp where they had some barracks it was all wired in high fences around it and that and they kept us there for quite some long time there was a rumor that was all going to be charged with mutiny for going overboard how true it is i don't know but that was a rumor if it was true i'd like to put one of them in my position or a whole crew's position of being in that turret at fire and see whether it had been mutiny this is a saga that has never been addressed as far as the franklin goes these men in the water have been forgotten just like they never existed we went down the ulethi and captain garris brought 400 men back on the ship that he wanted to bring back on and uh he formed what's called the 704 club but they didn't bring the ship out of action anyway and and the rest of them he claimed we're deserters they didn't deserve where they're going to desert too japanese didn't want us on a beach i'm sure helen he would swim over there so how would he deserve to the franklin now a shell of her former self was fast becoming more than simply a heavily crippled warship for sailors in the pacific theater she became symbolic of american survival grit and true heroism in her darkest hour she remained afloat no order was ever given to scuttler and the time had now come for a 12 000 mile victory lap on 9 april 1945 franklin set sail for new york and the brooklyn navy yard more than 200 select crewmen were added to the 704 already on board these numbers brought the total franklin crew sailing home 962 officers and men the voyage was monitored every mile of the way from the panama canal on around the coast of florida and up the eastern seaboard [Music] on 28 april 1945 the carrier finally arrived at gravesend bay new york the tugboats came out to meet us and they were spraying red white and blue with the hoses all over the harbor and followed us all the way up and saw us into the brooklyn navy yard it was kind of interesting you know the american public under a news blackout regarding the franklin didn't learn of the ship's heroic saga until two weeks later on 117 may i don't know who it was but they stole a dog in hawaii and i think they stole them by putting them into the garbage can and bring them by the quarter deck and we brought him back to brooklyn [Music] he uh brought a lot of joy to the boys i'll tell you you know of course new york treated us very nice three or four of us went down to one of the theaters there in brooklyn and we watch the movie and then half day news comes on you know at three minutes before seven on march 19th less than a hundred miles from honshu and the story of about the franklin and so on and so forth well they went through all these things and uh you know they showed the whole damn thing the fire raged as bombs rockets and small caliber ammunition continue to explode with increasing violence well i'll tell you the four of us went out of that theater we were shaking we didn't realize how bad it was you know dozens of selfless heroes were born the franklin's crew was writing a magnificent page in the history book of naval disaster it was something to see because we're seeing it from somebody else's viewpoint you know it was it was kind of terrifying to see it a ship that won't be sunk can't be sung [Music] six decades after the disaster historians continuously update casualty figures a recent count brings losses for the 19 march 1945 fire to 807 officers and men killed in action and 487 wounded in action casualties incurred during both franklin cruises totaled 926 killed in action the worst for any ship to remain afloat and second only to that of the battleship uss arizona which rests at the bottom of pearl harbor in solemn ceremony on her flight deck more than 1100 purple hearts were awarded to the franklin crew the sailors had become and still remain the most decorated crew in american naval history 20 officers and men were awarded the navy cross 23 silver stars were awarded including one to civilian donald russell the chance fought corsair representative he was the only civilian in world war ii to receive the silver star even as those ceremonies were concluding at new york captain gary's initiated court-martial proceedings against a select group of officers and charged them with several serious wartime crimes including desertion personally i think garris knew he made a mistake by putting everybody on normal cruising and we wasn't defending the ship and it looked pretty sticky the treatment of the big ben crewmen who are not part of the 704 club is one of the greatest injustices in the history of the u.s navy for the hundreds of sailors in hawaii a defense was established on several fronts jeremy remain your new york correspondent some of those wet sailors are those who were forced overboard during the attack even contacted radio personality walter winchell to inform him of the unjust treatment by captain gary's in the end all charges were dropped additionally father o'callaghan was told he would be awarded the medal of honor for his heroic deeds but then the navy's awards board denied him the medal perhaps because he wasn't a line officer or perhaps because captain gary's was not being recommended for the highest honor no one knows for sure but father o'callaghan's award was reduced to the navy cross knowing that he'd been recommended for the higher award father o'callaghan refused to accept the navy cross the only man in u.s navy history to do so washington reporter and muckraker drew pearson who'd gained notoriety during the war for being the first to report the incident of general george patton slapping a soldier had heard of captain gary's vindictive treatment directly from many franklin crewmen pearson wrote an article detailing the accounts of gary's leaving the ship wide open to attack his subsequent treatment of the crew and the naval awards board's decision not to award father o'callaghan the medal of honor secretary of the navy james b forrestall read pearson's peace forestall and no-nonsense patriot far beyond leslie gary's political reach and the navy's good old boy network pushed the o'callaghan medal through both father joe o'callaghan and lieutenant donald gary no relation to the infamous skipper were awarded their medals of honor by president truman in a ceremony at the white house on 23 january 1946 captain gary's received the navy cross but he never again commanded a ship in the united states navy they transferred him to sandy san diego and that was the end of that and that cost him the correct congressional medal of honor because he pushed that in the end franklin was rebuilt by the navy you know when i left that ship for the last time and it put back just like it was took a year to build it and took them a year to fix it painted and everything i could still smell burned flesh on that on that ship it's amazing i guess it must have impregnated right in the metal or something but i could i could still smell it i'm very proud to have been on it and been a part of it because i think it's history and it was an experience that i wouldn't ever want to go through again but i wouldn't take a million dollars for my memories in 1952 franklin was designated an attack carrier or cva 13. a year later she was reconfigured as an anti-submarine carrier or cvs 13. in 1964 franklin was the first essex class carrier to be classified unfit for further service she was mothballed two years later the ship was stricken from the navy registry and sold to portsmouth salvage company for 220 000 she was cut up for scrap in 1969. workers dismantling the ship at the time said they heard eerie voices and sounds below decks like guys horsing around the way guys do many firmly believe the ship was haunted [Music] whether she was or not will forever remain a mystery what's certain is that the fighting spirit of the man who proudly served aboard the franklin is one thing that will never die [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Janson Media

Views: 550,322

Keywords: uss franklin, uss franklin honor restored, uss franklin full movie, uss franklin ww2, uss franklin documentary, uss franklin take off, uss franklin ww2 captain, USS Franklin full documentary, world war 2 full movie, world war 2 movies, uss franklin world war 2, uss franklink world war ii, world war ii, world war 2, ww2, ww2 movies, uss franklin movie, honor restored, honor restored uss franklin, uss franklin: honor restored, janson media, ww2 documentary 2020, full movie

Id: NqEbqR0wKu0

Length: 71min 44sec (4304 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021