In mid-March 1945, Task Force 58 returned to Japanese waters to conduct strikes on the home islands of Japan. On March 18, a bomber dropped a bomb on the carrier Enterprise. It was a dud. The carrier Intrepid wasn't quite as lucky. A two engine bomber dropped down on the Dry I, but smashed into the sea after running into a curtain of AA fire. But parts of the plane ricocheted against the hull and killed two men. Later in the afternoon three planes dove on Yorktown; two missed, but a bomb from the third struck the signal bridge, skidded down the ships side and exploded, tearing holes in the hull and killing five men. All three carriers continued flight operations.
On the 19th, soon after sunrise, an enemy aircraft suddenly appeared over the carrier Wasp and scored a direct hit with a bomb. The flight deck was partially clear; two thirds of her plane's had already gone off on strikes. The bomb did not explode until it had sheared all the way through to the third deck. The fires touched off by the explosion -- and stoked by leaking aviation gas -- spread to five decks. The fire, however, was contained within 15 minutes. Still, 101 men were dead and 269 wounded.
The ordeal of the carrier Franklin was by far the worst. A few minutes after seven that morning, she was launching her second strike of the day. Most of the planes were still on the flight deck and a third strike was being readied on the hangar deck. Out of nowhere, seen by nobody and not appearing on any radar screen, a Japanese plane came over and dropped two 550-pound bombs. The first went through the flight deck near the forward elevator and exploded on the hangar deck; the second struck the flight deck and went off among a number of aircraft warming up to launch.
Both bombs set off huge fires, fed by high-octane gas and bombs bursting in their racks. Then a dozen rockets, each with 1,200 pounds of explosives, began to go off. The ship's vitals were torn by a series of explosions so powerful they could be heard aboard the carrier Bunker Hill beyond the horizon.
Rear Admiral Davison prepared to transfer his flag. As he left he advised Franklin's captain, Leslie E. Gehres, to get ready to abandon. The captain said he'd like to see if he could save his ship. A few minutes later he sent a message to Admiral Mitscher aboard Bunker Hill -- a message that would become a Navy classic: "This is the commanding officer of Franklin. You save us from the Japs and we'll save this ship." Mitscher, watching the black clouds of smoke boiling above the horizon, said to his chief of staff, "You tell him we'll save him."
Both officers followed through and Franklin was saved.
Joseph Timothy O'Callahan was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 14 May 1905. He joined the Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic Church in 1922, after graduation from preparatory school, and subsequently received degrees from several institutions of higher learning.
Father O'Callahan was commissioned as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) in the Naval Reserve Chaplain Corps in August 1940. He was assigned to the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, in 1940-42, to the aircraft carrier Ranger in 1942-44 and to the Naval Air Stations at Alameda, California, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, into early 1945.
Lieutenant Commander O'Callahan joined the the aircraft carrier Franklin in early March 1945. A few weeks later, when his ship was badly damaged by a Japanese air attack, he distinguished himself comforting the injured and leading damage control and ammunition jettisoning parties. The ship's Commanding Officer described O'Callahan as "the bravest man I ever saw". For his heroism on board Franklin, Lieutenant Commander O'Callahan was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Father O'Callahan went on to write a book about his experiences on Franklin, simply titled I Was Chaplain On The Franklin (The Macmillan Co.: New York, 1956). What follows are some excerpts:
"This is it!
"No doubt about it! . . .
"Was it a Jap, a Kamikaze, or one of our own bombs? A Tiny Tim [rocket]?
"Another bang! An echo or another explosion?
"I sprawled on the deck of the wardroom. I suppose Gats [Chaplain Grimes W. Gatlin], Tommy Greene, Red Morgan, and the other officers who seconds ago had been listening to me sound of on French toast flung themselves to the deck as I did. I don't remember. Those first moments were given over to instinct, the mad clutch for life. . . .
"This is it!
"One hundred planes crowded the flight and hanger decks, each plane with gas tanks filled to capacity, thousands of gallons of high-octane gas ready to burst into flame. And bombs - one-thousand and two-thousand pound bombs - were attached to the planes, were stacked in various compartments throughout the ships. And rockets, on the flight deck, on the hanger deck, on the deck below, on this deck!
"Sudden death was everywhere, for everyone, for the whole ship; death by fire, explosion, disintegration. . . .
"But for about thirty seconds there were no more explosions. . . .
"Only later did I learn that, following the brief interlude, a wall of fire swept the entire length of the hangar deck and left in its wake the bodies of eight hundred dead."
O'Callahan would eventually leave the wardroom and work his way forward and up two decks to the fo'c'sle, one deck above the Main, or Hangar, deck. Just aft of the open space was the junior aviators' bunk room.
"The lights were still burning in the junior aviators' bunk room - a large area about 36 by 48 feet. The air was close. There was no smoke, no sign of danger except the pitiful evidence of some thirty badly burned and mangled bodies. They had managed to crawl or had been helped by buddies from the forward port of the hangar deck to this place of relative safety.
"Chaplain Gatlin was here, too. This was our place. With the wounded and dying. Were there any doctors? None were around; perhaps none were alive. But Mason, the warrant pharmacist, was here, and with him several pharmacist's mates. The junior aviators' bunk room became an emergency hospital. The corpsmen were the doctors, and the first-aid kits supplied the medication - sulfa powder, burn jelly and morphine."
The chaplains gave aid and comfort to the wounded.
"But the peace was spiritual and internal only. The conflagration on the hangar deck, having made a holocaust of the planes, now had heated the bombs and the rockets to explosion point. The ship trembled as in a mighty earthquake; the noise of the explosions paralyzed my mind.
"Yet another explosion, and another, and another, and another. The lights went out; our bunk-room hospital was illuminated only by dim battle lamps. We would hear a weird and ghostly swish, like the sound of a swift messenger from hell, then another explosion, and another, and another."
--
Eventually O'Callahan decided that he should make his way to the forward flight deck.
"I took the outside starboard passage, the most direct route to the hangar deck. Though daylight made the passage clear, I hugged the bulkhead to keep as far as possible from the rail lest the concussion from some explosion blow me overboard. The noise seemed more terrible now, perhaps because I was not at the moment ministering to others. . . . The noise of explosion following explosion, each blast worse than the preceding because of the cumulative horror of what had gone before; the billowing smoke, a shroud mantling a dead ship; the flames, snake tongued, writhing high into the sky or lashing fore and aft, port and starboard, scourging those who thought themselves safely distant from the center of destruction - all this was truly awe-inspiring.
"But there was work to be done, and the awareness of this was a shield between me and the full terror of the spectacle. The open passage I was in extended for about 250 feet along the side of the ship and led to a platform from which an inboard ladder descended to the hangar deck below. The platform offered a clear view into the hangar deck space . The hangar deck was one mass blaze, not leaping flames, just one solid mass of fire. Here and there, like coals of special brilliance, were airplane engines glowing white hot, glaring so intensely that their image hurt the eye and branded the memory forever. No one was alive in the hangar deck. No one could live a moment there. Save for a quick prayer, I could not help any of those who died there and whose bodies were already consumed."
Eventually he found his way to the flight deck.
"From the fo'c'sle, up and across an open catwalk, I finally found access to the forward flight deck. Nearly one thousand feet of flight deck and nearly nine hundred feet aflame! Not solid fire as below, but flames, tall as towers, leaping high, snapping in all directions. Smoke swelled to the clouds, rolled along the deck and over the sides. It hung around us like a local overcast, but blacker than the most forbidding day."
Medal of Honor citation of Lieutenant Commander Joseph Timothy O'Callahan (as printed in the official publication "Medal of Honor, 1861-1949, The Navy", page 231):
"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Chaplain on board the U.S.S. Franklin when that vessel was fiercely attacked by enemy Japanese aircraft during offensive operations near Kobe, Japan, on 19 March 1945. A valiant and forceful leader, calmly braving the perilous barriers of flame and twisted metal to aid his men and his ship, Lieutenant Commander O'Callahan groped his way through smoke-filled corridors to the open flight deck and into the midst of violently exploding bombs, shells, rockets and other armament. With the ship rocked by incessant explosions, with debris and fragments raining down and fires raging in ever increasing fury, he ministered to the wounded and dying, comforting and encouraging men of all faiths; he organized and led fire-fighting crews into the blazing inferno on the flight deck; he directed the jettisoning of live ammunition and the flooding of the magazine; he manned a hose to cool hot, armed bombs rolling dangerously on the listing deck, continuing his efforts despite searing, suffocating smoke which forced men to fall back gasping and imperiled others who replaced them. Serving with courage, fortitude and deep spiritual strength, Lieutenant Commander O'Callahan inspired the gallant officers and men of the Franklin to fight heroically and with profound faith in the face of almost certain death and to return their stricken ship to port."
_en_route_to_the_Western_Pacific_for_operations_off_Vietnam,_23_June_1967.jpg)
