Trial by Fire

by P. T. Deutermann

  By now J.R. had become like most of the men in the cleanup brigades, who plodded inch by inch through the various decks and compartments, GI cans and flat-bottomed shovels in hand, their eyes empty and minds far away as they did their gruesome duty. J.R. had seen one team hump their GI can over to the side, take their hats off, say a prayer, and then, and only then, jettison the contents of the can into the sea, where the horde of gulls who’d followed the ship out of Ulithi squalled their approval. Father Joe had done a couple of memorial services, but they’d been miserable affairs. The captain had attended the first one, but apparently didn’t like all those accusing stares from the assembled crew. He didn’t make the second one.

  Up until now, J.R. had been a determined warrior, quietly eager to finish this war with the utter defeat and destruction of these barbarians from Japan, whatever it took. To his sorrow, he now knew that the devastation inflicted on this great ship and its crew was one of the things that it was going to take. He could remember actually looking forward to the final assaults against the so-called home islands, where the US Navy, humiliated at Pearl, would finally exact a terrible retribution. Now, well, now he wanted to just go home and lick his wounds, which he understood were spiritual more than physical. If this is what it was like to “win” a war, he wanted no more of it.

  44

  Ten days later, George found himself cooling his heels in the outer office of the Pacific Fleet Legal Officer, Captain Leland Gentry, JAG Corps, USN.

  He had actually walked from the Ten-Ten dock, where Franklin was moored, across the base and up the hill to the Makalapa Crater, where the Pacific Fleet Headquarters sprawled in the benign Hawaiian sunlight across ten guarded and fenced acres. He’d never been to the fleet HQ but he’d heard stories about it being a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week beehive of activity, with literally a few thousand people on the staff. Today things seemed somewhat quieter, probably because Nimitz and his operational and logistics staff were now on Guam, preparing for the final showdown with Japan.

  Franklin had come into Pearl yesterday morning to a chorus of ship’s whistles greeting the battered carrier as she sailed up the narrow channel. There’d been cheering crowds on the breakwater and even bigger crowds in the shipyard, as all work stopped so everyone would have a chance to see the storied Big Ben in all her wrecked glory. This time the captain had graciously allowed the shipyard pilot to bring her alongside. True to character, he’d immediately complained about the great swaths of rust along her sides once he got onto the pier. Once the fires had removed the paint, the ship’s steel quickly rusted over in the unforgiving environment of the open sea. Incongruously, there were some areas along the island where the fires had been so hot that they had changed the chemical composition of the actual metal; these shone like accusing mirrors in the bright Hawaiian sunlight.

  There’d been several senior officers on the pier who wanted to see for themselves what they’d only heard about. Once people got close enough to realize the full extent of the damage, the cheering turned to somber stares and quiet exclamations of disbelief. The captain had spent almost the entire day walking various visiting firemen through the burned-out core of the ship.

  “Captain Gentry will see you now, Commander,” a pretty WAVE said, indicating that he should go through the wooden batwing doors into the inner sanctum. Just about every major office had wooden saloon doors because the headquarters, mainly a collection of so-called tempo-buildings, was not air-conditioned. The vintage wooden doors provided the only cross-ventilation.

  Gentry was an honest-to-God long, tall drink of water, George thought as he approached the desk. The captain appeared to be in his late fifties, with a friendly smile and a strong handshake. He’d been a federal appeals court judge when the war broke out, and he definitely looked the part. He invited George to take a seat in one of the armchairs in front of his desk.

  “Welcome back, Commander,” he began. “If half the stories about Franklin are true, you guys have truly been through Hell, itself.”

  George nodded. He tried to think of something clever to say in response but could only shake his head, but then the enormity of the ship’s travail seemed to finally hit him. He felt his chest tighten, his face getting red, and tears starting in his eyes.

  “Take a moment, Commander,” Gentry said. As George recovered himself, another WAVE slipped into the office with a glass of iced tea, summoned apparently by a button under Gentry’s desk. She gave George a sympathetic look and quickly scooted out of the office. George gratefully sipped some tea as he tried to compose himself. He’d thought he was past such moments.

  “You’re probably wondering why the Fleet JAG has asked you to come up the hill,” Gentry said.

  George shook his head. He knew full well why. “The court-martials,” he said.

  Gentry nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The court-martials. Apparently, your CO wants to court-martial about a thousand of his crew for desertion in the face of the enemy.”

  George nodded. There was a lot he wanted to tell the JAG captain, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Stay loyal to the captain because he was the XO, or plead for consideration for all those men under the gun. He knew that word had gotten out in the fleet that the captain of the Franklin, the purported hero who’d saved his ship in the face of the worst fires and explosions ever experienced by a carrier that survived, now wanted to court-martial a third of his crew. Captain Gentry waited patiently. Finally, George made his decision.

  “We lost about eight hundred killed and another four to five hundred grievously injured,” he said. “Twelve to thirteen hundred casualties. One-third of the ship’s complement. Another thousand or so had to jump over the sides because of what was happening on the flight deck and in the hangar bays. We spent the transit from Ulithi to Pearl sending men with shovels into the hangar and gallery decks to scrape up what was left of the dead, which in many cases was not much more than grease spots, which they dumped into trash cans so we could get the remains over the side. We had to send other teams with steam-lances to disinfect the entire hangar deck.”

  He paused to let that horror sink in. He deliberately did not look directly at the captain.

  “It took us weeks to figure out what our losses actually were, who had survived, who had not, and who was missing, and therein lies a problem. Some men were blown over the side in the initial explosions as one-thousand-pound bombs went off in their faces, while they, against all expectations, were trying to extract their pilots from their planes. Inside the fire. Some took shelter down on the fantail and eventually jumped into the sea because a waterfall of burning avgas came over the round-down on top of them.

  “There were rockets that went off inside the flight deck fire and then flew up the flight deck at chest level, killing many who had sought safety all the way forward. There were firefighting crews who advanced on the fires and explosions who were cut down when burning bombs rolled out of the flames and exploded in their faces. Each time that happened more men came in, picked up the hoses, and headed aft. In many cases they found the brass hose nozzles melted. The officer who took over the organization of the firefighting efforts on the flight deck was the Catholic chaplain, Father O’Callahan. The regular damage control organization had all been obliterated in the initial explosions. The ship’s air boss, mini boss, and their entire crew died when a Tiny Tim rocket came through PriFly. Two squadrons of the air group had been killed when the gallery deck was compressed against the underside of the flight deck by—”

  “Okay,” Gentry interrupted. “I get it.”

  “I doubt it,” George snapped, and then regretted it. The captain was way ahead of him.

  “Okay, okay, now tell me about this 704 Club business.”

  George blinked. How in the hell did the PacFleet legal officer know about that, he wondered?

  “When we took the final ‘who’s left’ muster after leaving Ulithi, there were seven hundred and four men who we could pretty safely say had remained on b
oard. The captain declared that because these men had loyally stayed at their posts, they would become charter members of the Big Ben 704 Club. Everyone else who had been able-bodied but who had left the ship without orders was a deserter.”

  “‘Without orders?” Gentry said. “Tell me about those orders.”

  “Well, I think this might be a way out of this mess. Two cruisers were sent to our assistance. The Pittsburgh and the Santa Fe. Pittsburgh was ordered to take us in tow. We were only fifty, sixty miles from Japan, and the Japs were determined to finish us off. Santa Fe was sent to assist us in firefighting and getting our wounded off if possible. When the explosions aft on the flight deck began to kill men on the front end of the flight deck, I recommended to the captain that we had to get those men—several hundred by this time—off the flight deck. Belowdecks was fire, everywhere. He then said: I am not abandoning ship. But—any man who is not vital to saving the ship has my permission to get over to the Santa Fe.”

  “Where was the Santa Fe?” Gentry asked.

  “She’d made two approaches alongside to assist with firefighting efforts on the hangar deck. Initially the explosions were so big she had to back away. She came in again and this time her skipper purposefully smashed his ship’s port bow up against our starboard side and held it there. This allowed men to escape from our forward flight deck down onto the cruiser. Many others jumped into the water between the two ships and were rescued by Santa Fe crewmen, many of whom jumped into the water between the two ships to haul men to safety. Pittsburgh was maneuvering in front of us to make the tow. Jap torpedo bombers attacked us then, but the two cruisers shot them down. One of their torpedoes actually hit us, but it was a dud. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

  “So—you’re telling me the captain gave an order that anyone not necessary to saving the ship could try to escape.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Gentry thought about that for a moment.

  “Who,” he asked, “would make the determination that Seaman X was vital to saving the ship, while Seaman Y was not?”

  “The individual seamen,” George said.

  “Of course,” Gentry said. “And I know on which side of that decision I would have come down, when the world was ending five hundred feet behind me.”

  “Yes, sir,” George said. “And you should also know this: I estimate that a third of the guys who went into the water between a listing, burning aircraft carrier and a light cruiser drowned. Too many jumped with their helmets and their life jackets on. They broke their necks when they hit the water. It’s a big jump.”

  “Jesus,” Gentry said softly.

  “Look, Captain Gentry,” George said, his voice rising, despite his attempt at self-control. He unknowingly squeezed his eyes shut. “All these so-called deserters had no choice. The ship’s own AA guns were cooking off in the catwalks and sending twenty-millimeter, forty-millimeter, and even fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets everywhere. I saw a Tiny Tim rocket go up the flight deck, chest-high, go over and then explode right in front of the Pittsburgh. The men back on the fantail were being bombarded by the explosions on the flight deck and from the hangar bay—that’s the same level as the fantail. They had to go. The guys on the edges of the flight deck had to go when burning gasoline started coming over the deck edges. Gunners in the catwalks had to go, for the same reason. The hundreds of men way up on the forward flight deck were taking shelter behind dead bodies. They had to go. This wasn’t desertion. This was all about and only about staying alive. This—”

  George suddenly found himself being held from behind by Captain Gentry’s hands on his shoulders. Gentry was telling him to slow down, breathe, it’s okay, you’re entirely right, we’re gonna take care of this. Please, just breathe. Two WAVES from the outer office had come running in when they heard George’s hysterical shouting. They surrounded him and joined Gentry’s efforts to calm him down. After a minute, George slumped into his chair and wept uncontrollably. “Wrong,” he cried. “This is just so fucking wrong.”

  Captain Gentry pulled up a chair in front of George’s chair and waited for him to quiet down. Then he had a request. “I want to see the ship,” he said.

  “The whole world wants to see the ship,” George replied. “Every admiral here in Pearl has been down there.”

  “I want to see it when there aren’t any admirals on board. Or the skipper, if that can be managed. I want you to show me everything, no matter how bad it is. That way I’ll have some perspective on how to deal with this mass court-martialing business. Agreed?”

  George had to think for a moment. He was embarrassed at losing control like that, but, on the other hand, it sounded like the JAG was willing to consider the circumstances rather than just granting a blanket order to proceed with disciplinary proceedings.

  “The captain has taken a room at the senior officer BOQ,” George said. “Can you come aboard at 2000? All the bystanders ought to be gone by then.”

  “Perfect,” Captain Gentry said. “I’ll come in an unmarked staff car. You meet me on the pier at 2000. No quarterdeck bells, no announcements.”

  “Yessir,” George said.

  45

  George waited as inconspicuously as he could at the foot of officers’ brow stand at five minutes to eight. He almost felt angry at the gorgeous Hawaiian sunset painting the sea across the entire western horizon. The contrast between all that natural beauty and the scarred, blackened, rusted, stinking mass of steel rising into the sky above him seemed unfair. There was only a single conveyor belt working the starboard sponsons as food, medical supplies, and mail were still being loaded aboard. With only 704 personnel embarked, the usual volume of stores and provisions was much reduced, but it was still taking a long time. One of the problems was finding a place to put it all, especially food stores.

  Precisely at eight o’clock he saw a black sedan coming down the pier, threading its way through the idle dock cranes. The cranes’ working lights were on now, shining directly down onto the pier, and the sedan appeared to be playing hide-and-seek as it disappeared from one cone of light only to appear in the next one. George had briefed the officer of the deck not to formally recognize the officer he was bringing aboard, even if he was a four-stripe captain.

  “But, XO, sir: the captain left strict instructions—everybody coming aboard has to be logged in.”

  “Not this guy, Lieutenant. That’s a direct order. Any trouble? I’ve got your back. But no record of this visit.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the lieutenant replied. He was not an aviator. George didn’t recognize him and thought maybe he’d come aboard at Ulithi with the other replacements.

  “Put it in the Pass Down the Line Log that the Quarterdeck Log is to be brought to me at 0730 in the morning,” George ordered. “I will take it to the captain personally.”

  “Yessir, will do.” The lieutenant nodded, looking much relieved. “Will we be getting under way tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so,” George said. “The Brooklyn Navy Yard has asked that the yard here be given a day to tote up the damage. That way they can prepare for our arrival. Or they may send a team to go with us to the Canal. Resume the watch, please.”

  He then had gone down the three-tiered brow stand to wait for Captain Gentry. Five minutes later they stepped through the starboard side hangar door and into the hangar itself. The shipyard had brought portable spotlight stands into the hangar, so there was no hiding the scope of the damage.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Gentry whispered as he beheld the devastation.

  The hangar was still warmer than the air outside. The smell of char was everywhere, laced with a much more unpleasant smell. George knew it wasn’t likely, but the convoluted steel all around them seemed to him to be still radiating heat. There was only some emergency lighting available in the side rooms along the vast hangar, so George had brought flashlights to ensure they didn’t walk into any holes. Two officers approached out of the gloom. George introduced Lieutenant Gary
Peck and Lieutenant J.R. McCauley.

  “These two officers played a very big part in saving the ship,” George said. “I’ll let them conduct the tour and I’ll chime in whenever I think it necessary.”

  J.R. offered a small plastic jar of Vicks VapoRub to Captain Gentry. When George saw that Gentry didn’t know what to do with it, he explained what it was for.

  Gentry blinked, and then said: “Oh.” He applied a dab of the pungent paste in front of each nostril. George applied some, as did the other two officers. He nodded at J.R., who began the tour of the damage.

  It took two hours, total, after which George accompanied the captain back down to the pier. There he waited while the thoroughly shocked JAG stood next to the sedan, visibly trying to compose himself. Gentry’s driver had discreetly backed away when he caught a whiff of his passenger’s khaki uniform.

  At George’s orders, the two lieutenants had shown the JAG everything, including portions of the gallery deck which had not yet been entered because the tangle of burned steel simply could not be penetrated without industrial-scale metal-cutting assistance. The eerie silence inside the hangar and even on the wrecked second deck only added to the enormity of the disaster. No one who’d been aboard a carrier had ever experienced such a silence as was now draped over the gutted Franklin like an invisible shroud. Even the omnipresent dockside seagulls were staying away, as if sensing that this was no place for the living.

  Gentry finally opened the right-side passenger door. “Words fail me,” he said, as he stood unsteadily next to the opened door. “I will take care of this, Commander. I promise you. If I have to go to Nimitz himself, I will take care of this.” He paused and took a breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “I can’t think of anything else to say just now. Other than that. I will take care of this.”