USS Franklin – Surviving a Comet Strike

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Today we take a look at the March 1945 attack on USS Franklin and how her crew managed to save the ship.

Sources:
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/BIG-BEN-FLAT-TOP-Story-U.S.S/1139611200/bd
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saving-Big-Ben-Franklin-OCallahan-ebook/dp/B00DKMWNK0
https://www.amazon.co.uk/chaplain-Franklin-Joseph-Timothy-Ocallahan/dp/B0007DUQ3Q

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29 thoughts on “USS Franklin – Surviving a Comet Strike”

  6. My Dad’s ship was USS Bennington, CV 20…..a sister Essex to the Franklin. My brother’s 1st ship was USS O’Callahan FF 1051.

    That Admiral was a REAL piece of work 💩💩💩.

    Reply

  9. What amazes me is the hubris of the captain trying to bring desertion charges! At sea!
    Was he down there with fire hoses? Helping 1st aiders with wounded sailors?
    Happy to see such leaders removed from their job.

    Reply

  13. I wonder how much damage there would have been if the carrier had an armored fight deck like the British carriers had? Please understand, I'm not criticizing the American carrier deck plan. I'm only wondering if a British carrier would have been damaged.

    The crew of the Franklin should all have been awarded medals. It's hard to imagine the ship being saved, and sailing under its own power after being damaged to that extent. It is true that uncommon valar(sp) was common that day by that crew. The captain of the cruiser was flirting with a court marshal. He and his crew were at the top of their training to have accomplished such a maneuver. The U.S. Navy was at its peak at this stage of the war.

    As to the delay in the priest's medal, it was probably for the same reason that such medals were originally delayed while the War Department wondered if medics should get such a medal. Some felt that only fighting men were qualified for such an award. Of course it was decided that non combatants were eligible for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

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  15. The valor of those men is hard to comprehend. Fighting those fires with bombs and rockets cooking off all around them. Stepping over their dead comrades to continue the fight with no thoughts other than to save their ship. Then there’s the crew of the Bonhomme Richard.

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  17. A neighbor of mine was a aircraft maintenance mechanic on the Franklin with an embarked Marine Corps squadron. Just a kid from Florence, South Carolina. He was on the flight deck when the bombs hit. I knew him forty years after the event. He never went into any details of that day beyond saying it was a very long day, and then one day when we were watching a world at war documentary he jumped off the couch, pointed at the TV and shouted “that was my gun!”. It was film from the Franklin bombing and subsequent fire. That started many sessions where he started to get it out of his system. He’d been haunted by the events for forty years and had never talked to anyone about it. He passed a few years later. I think he’d made piece with those ghosts by then.

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  19. We must never forget the treacherous deliberate attempted murder of the entire crew of the USS Liberty in an attempt to dupe the USA into fighting Israel's war for them against Egypt.

    Israel successfully duped the USA into conquering Iraq for them using the lie of weapons of mass destruction which were never found.

    Because Russia began protecting Syria from the bully Israel in 2013, Israel agents in the US government orchestrated the anti-Russian coup in Ukraine in 2014.

    Currently American taxpayers have been duped into paying for Israel's war against Russia so that Russia will be too exhausted to protect Iran from the bully Israel. For the past 25 years Israel has been telling the USA that Iran is just two months away from getting a nuclear weapon and that the USA must attack Iran immediately.
    Israel is determined to fight Russia to every last drop of UKRAINIAN BLOOD!

    Did you really think the tens of millions of people died in World War I because a single person archduke Ferdinand was assassinated? The truth is that if it weren't for World War I breaking up the Ottoman Empire Israel would not exist today!

    Will the stupid sheeple ever learn to stop falling for the same old tricks again and again? Not as long as the instigators of war control every form of mass communication including the publishing houses of history textbooks, YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, etc.

    Reply

  22. Why would they not use another ships radar to cover their blind side when launching aircraft. If they saw an incoming attack they could radio a warning as radio silence would be pointless at that stage.

    Reply

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