[Combat Bulletin, No. 55 U.S.S. Franklin]

[Music] aircraft carrier USS Franklin 60 mi off the coast of Japan. On 19th March, she suffers two direct hits from an enemy dive bomber. Crewmen fight desperately to bring the resulting fires under control. Thousands of tons of aviation gasoline are ignited. Aircraft still on the deck are loaded with bombs, rockets, and machine gun ammunition. And many major explosions follow detonation of the Japanese 500lb armor-piercing projectiles. The flames spread rapidly from the after end of the carrier and the flight deck is enveloped in smoke. Meanwhile, up forward, the elevator from the hanger deck shows the force of the bomb which struck amid fueled and armed planes waiting to be lifted to the flight deck. Explosions continue. Casualties mount into the hundreds. Sailors were taught the length of the ship by the severe blasts. Individual acts of heroism are attributed to officers and men of the Franklin, several hundred of whom were trapped below at mess by the bombing. Assistance in organizing firefighters and other acts performed without regard for personal safety are credited to the ship's chaplain, Lieutenant Commander Joseph O' Callahan. He gives last rights to a badly injured sailor. The cruiser Santa Fe is among several warships which stand alongside the badly listing carrier to give a hoses from the cruiser spray the decks of the Frank. Personnel [Music] cut off by fire on the ship's fan tail are rescued by the destroyer Hickok. The line is anchored to a gun on the forward turret of the destroyer. [Music] Tongues of flame lick above the trapped sailors and hoses from the Hickok go into action. A rescue by breaches boy. As the flames draw dangerously close, many trapped crewmen jump from the gun sponssons onto the bow of the hiccup. The rescue ship is beginning to pull away and others must dive overboard. A sailor climbs down the net of the Franklin and swims toward a line from the receding destroyer. Listing heavily disturbed, the carrier still being sprayed as other survivors get away in the life raft. By early afternoon, the fires have been brought under control and the carrier prepares for a 12,000mi homeward voyage to New York. With flags still flying, the Franklin sails to Pearl Harbor and then through the canal on her way to New York. 772 of the crew are dead or missing, more than 300 wounded. The Franklin's deck is a twisted and charred mass of ruins as the carrier enters New York Harbor under her own power. Known in the Navy as Big Ben, the Franklin, a 27,000 ton carrier of the Essex class, was commissioned in January 1944. Today, she's under repairs at the Navyyard in Brooklyn. [Music]