This is Ed Metzler and today is the 21st of
July 2022. I am interviewing Mr. Walt Gallagher
in Fredericksburg, Texas. This interview is in
support of the Center of Pacific War Studies
Archives for the National Museum of the Pacific
War Texas Historical Commission for the Preservation
of historical information related to this site
so Walt thank you for spending the time with us today
to describe some of your experiences we really
appreciate it we know it was a long time ago
but we're going to go back and we're going to
talk about history a little bit
so if you would introduce yourself give us your
full name and when and where you were born and
we'll take it from there. Thank you. My name is
Walter Philip Gallagher and I was
born October 29, 1926 in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Where I'm not positive, I think it
was in a hospital. You don't remember for sure.
Some people back then were born at
at home as well.
Now, so you have brothers and sisters?
I did.
I had two brothers and two sisters.
One is still alive and the other three have
passed on.
And what did your dad do for a living?
Well it was during a period of pretty tough
times, some of the time, particularly in the
thirties were talking about depression and at
times he didn't have a job but
his experience was as a chemist working for a
paint company mixing paints and
other materials and he chose to call himself a
chemist anyway when the census
takers came by.
So let's say you went to high school in that area?
Went to high school in Elizabeth.
The high school was an old boys' high school,
Thomas Jefferson.
It doesn't exist today, they have another high
school in its place.
So do you remember December the 7th, 1941?
I think something happened that day.
Yes, I do remember December 7th. Of course, I
didn't realize the significance as much either.
There was a lot to learn, particularly where it
was Pearl Harbor and these places that the
Japanese also attacked in Alaska and other places.
so things changed after
December the 7th so
but you were still in high school right
December 7th
1941 I was
in high school
so when you
got to be 17
you decided you wanted to
go into
the war is that right? Correct of course we've
been reading and hearing about war
for several quite a few years actually because
there was war going on in the
orient between the Chinese and Japanese and
over in Europe as well and I'm sure
it was just a matter of time before our country
would be at war too but it was
It was pretty dramatic and shocking knowing
that we were going to be in it.
So were you still in high school when you
decided to go into the Navy?
I was not in high school then.
I had quit high school when I turned sixteen to
go to work, help the family as well.
But it was during that time, my 16th year, that
I was looking to go into the military
in some fashion.
That initially it was the possibility of going
to work on these supply ships sending war-needed
supplies over to Europe and so forth, talking
about the merchant marines and so forth.
But I was still pretty young.
I was a little too young, and I looked even younger.
People didn't believe I was even sixteen.
So you volunteered to go into the Navy when you
were seventeen?
Well actually it was my birthday, and I had to
travel over to the next large city,
Newark where the recruiting station was for the
for the Marine Corps. I went over
to join the Marines but it was at the end of
the month that was the last day
that they were recruiting. They had they had
they had reached their quotas for
the month and I was anxious to sign up. They
told me that the Navy recruiting
station was right next door. And if I really
was, you know, to me, what I wanted to do,
I saw, I just went to the next door, and that's
where I signed up for the Navy.
So you're in the Navy now, huh? Right.
As the song goes.
Well, two weeks later, I was sworn in over in
New York City.
So did you have to get your parents to sign for you?
That's exactly right.
And was they happy to do that or did you have
to twist their arm?
No, they knew I was intent and they knew they
had to give their permission anyway.
But they had to do that before I could get
sworn in.
So where did you go for basic?
Went to Samson up in New York State and that
started in early November and it was about
seven weeks I think I spent there.
It was early January that I was reassigned and
given orders to report to my next phase
of my Navy.
And so what was that?
They assigned me to go to-originally they asked
what my choices would be, where I wanted
to go, and I didn't get my first choice, which
would have been as a sub-detector patrolling
the Atlantic Ocean.
But they gave me a pretty good one, sent me to
the ATTC Memphis, which was the Aviation
Technical Training Center in Memphis,
Tennessee, and sent me to Aviation Ordnance School.
And I started that in January, and that lasted
up through early May, when our class graduated
about 100 other people.
So that's May of 1944, then?
May of 1944.
Yeah, right.
So you're learning all about ordnance, huh? Right.
So you're learning all about ordnance, huh?
Right. How to take care of shooting, or at
least hoping that what I did, I wouldn't
shoot the propeller off the front of a plane.
You actually learn, using a cam, you could
shoot a bullet right through the blades of the
plane as it rotated.
But didn't have to do that.
So you graduated then from ordnance school.
Graduated in early May.
Then what happened?
They shipped me out, going to the West Coast
for my next assignment, which I didn't really
know at the time what it was going to be.
So you didn't know which ship you were going to
be assigned to?
Either a ship or a land air station, whatsoever.
But we weren't there, some of us.
There were 100, I think, maybe 110 or so
graduates of that class that had boarded the
train and spent about three to four days
traveling to the West Coast.
It's a long road.
To San Diego.
Went to the Naval Air Station at San Diego in a
temporary housing barracks.
And it wasn't long.
It was about five days before somebody told me
that my name was on this list of people that
were assigned to the Franklin, which was tied
up at a nearby dock.
had just come from the East coast and finishing
off what they needed to ship out to the Pacific.
So the ship hadn't really gone out to the
Pacific yet.
She was still-
They came from the East coast to the canal up
to San Diego, and they were supplying themselves
That's what they needed to fill out their crew
and whatever else they needed waiting
to head out to Pearl Harbor, which they did.
I think it was either the last day of May or
the first day of June.
So what did you think when you first saw the Franklin?
Oh my goodness.
Maybe how huge this ship is.
And of the class of 100, there were only 18 of
us that were assigned to the Franklin.
And we boarded about 4:00, I think, on May 23,
1944, and told to follow this gentleman
And we saluted the officer of the deck and
saluted the flag and so forth and followed
this gentleman down to the mess hall where we
were going to spend our first night.
That's a good place to spend it.
They didn't have our bunks and assignments and
so forth.
They weren't ready.
They had some more work to do to get our-
So you finally got a bunk, though.
Finally got a bunk of the eighteen guys.
I think they split us up into about three
parties of six, and some of us went to the
area of where the ordnance would take care of
dive bombers.
So I was assigned to that section where they
would be taking care of dive bombers, SB-2Cs.
And some of them wanted to take care of torpedo
planes, and others wanted to take care of
the fighters.
So had you actually done any training loading
dive bombers at this point?
Not necessarily dive bombers, but we had
training on pushing a skid around and how to
load a
bomb into a bomb bay.
So off she sailed into the Pacific.
We got on the 23rd and a week later we departed
for Pearl Harbor.
I hope this is all coming through here.
So had you ever been to sea before?
Well not so many miles at sea, maybe about
three miles on an excursion boat or something
like that.
Did you get seasick at all?
No I didn't.
That's a good thing.
Well, it was mostly because it was such a large
ship, you know, it would cut right
through those waves, but actually the sailing
was pretty smooth on the way to Pearl Harbor.
Other later times it got pretty rough, but that
size ship could handle it pretty well.
So here you are, a seventeen-year-old kid.
Yeah, but I didn't feel seventeen.
I felt grown up.
You felt grown up.
And I was pretty strong. Yeah.
And I could take care of myself.
And you did.
That's cool.
So to Pearl Harbor, and then from there the
ship went further?
Well, they spent a couple weeks at Pearl, actually.
So other Navy aircraft could have a place or a
ship to practice landing on and taking
off from and so forth.
Our squadrons stayed on the island while these
other squadrons had a place or a ship to practice
After about two weeks, we headed out to the
Marshall Islands, and we'd talk.
So what was the first action that the Franklin
was in when you went to the Marshalls?
Believe it or not, the first action was July
the 4th.
We went to celebrate July the 4th, tagging Iwo Jima.
This is almost, well, it was, it feels like it
was almost a year before Iwo Jima was ever invaded.
But this was July the 4th.
They were invaded in March the next year.
Yeah, it was the next year before they actually invaded.
This was all part of the beginning of the
Marianas campaign.
So, I guess there was Guam and-
Saipan and Tinian and Guam. Right.
So, you were actively then arming the dive
bombers for some of this action? Correct.
Is this hard work?
I mean, is it exciting work?
Tell me how you felt.
Well, sure it was exciting.
You know, these pilots were, you learned that
these guys were heroes, I mean, taking off
an aircraft carrier every day, if not on a
scouting mission on, at least for the dive
bombers, they were out there to attack the
enemy in one way or another.
So which aircraft was it that you were arming,
the dive bomber was?
The SB-2C, right, L-divers.
And what do you remember from those early
sorties where you were doing, do you do that
up on the main deck or were you below deck and
then it was up on the elevator to the
main deck?
I didn't do it very much on a hangar deck.
It was mostly on a flight deck itself.
Main deck was the hangar deck.
It was deck number one.
We were up above that.
It was during the Marianas campaign that I did
suffer some injury.
Loading bombs for, I think we were probably
going to attack Guam or invade Guam, I think
that followed Saipan, but I was helping out
loading bombs into a torpedo plane, Torpedo bomber.
They not only carried torpedoes to sink ships,
but they carried bombs to also bomb the bomb
ships as well, or the enemy on land.
What I was doing was helping to put the bombs
into the bomb bay of this TBM, and one of
The bomb racks would not lock.
The bomb had little hooks like that you could
put into a bomb rack, which would connect
it to the rack and the cables that the pilot
would release for the bombs to be released
when they were over target.
But you had to get them up in a bomb bay first.
We had one up in the bomb bay, but the other
bomb rack wouldn't lock.
And myself and another ordinance were sitting
on the one bomb that would go up and stay
locked and we were waiting there for some
decision to be made, whether we take the one
down that was there or scrub the flight, just one.
But unfortunately, for me at least, I could see
the people trying to make the decision
huddled sort of together in front of the plane.
I couldn't see their heads or faces because my
head and face was in the bomb bay.
But one of those persons came over, ducked in
and looked at what the situation was and
didn't think and pulled the manual release
cable and the bomb that was up there fell out.
And fortunately, I wasn't squarely under the
one that was released.
It hit me on the back, pretty much on the back
of the head,
and drove me right out from under the plane.
But I think the fins from that bomb that was
released cut my Achilles.
Okay, and of course I didn't realize it was
cut, but I picked myself up off the deck and
I was running around kind of cussing a little
bit about somebody pulling that manual release.
When I realized it, my shoe was sloshing full
of blood.
And others realized that happened, too, and
they hustled me down to Sick bay.
So I spent the next three weeks in sickbay.
Three weeks.
I fortunately had a good doctor down there in
the hospital, Dr. George Fox.
And he sewed me up, what could be sewed up, and
I spent the next three weeks healing in
the sickbay.
So were you able to go back to your assignment then?
Yes, I did, but I used a cane to help me walk
around and so forth for several more weeks.
So a lot had gone on on the ship.
The ship continued to take on the enemy and
give them help however they could.
But eventually I came around and I got back to
work sometime in August.
So as I remember the Franklin went on to Leyte
for and participated in the battle of Leyte
Gulf in
various ways. Yeah before that they they they
uh were down at Palau to Palau Palau yeah yeah Palau
And then following that was the Philippines and
building up to the Battle of the Philippine
Sea, which was about the third week in October.
But we had a lot of places between Palo and the
Philippines, foremost even southern Okinawa.
And other islands as well, yeah.
Yeah, this ship got around.
It got around, it did.
Now, there was a kamikaze hit on the Franklin.
I'm not talking about the big event that
happened in 45, but even in 44, wasn't there?
Yes, there was.
Tell me about that.
That was in the latter part. Well, in October,
the enemy attacked the Franklin at three
particular times in October.
The first one was, I think, we were, well, I
know, we were attacked by torpedo planes.
And that was in the evening.
It was still light out.
It was probably about 6:00 or so in the evening,
attacked by Japanese Betty bombers.
and they tried torpedoes and one that I saw
very clearly actually almost plowed
into the ship but instead it skipped across the
deck it slid off it's a very
famous film showing a ship, an enemy ship
skidding off and bursting into flames and
crashing into the ocean.
It came from the port side across and crashed
into the ocean on a starboard.
And that was on October 13th and on the 15th we
got attacked by some dive bombers and one
One of them did clip the ship, deck edge
elevator, but the-we took a-the true kamikaze hit.
That was their mission, I'm sure.
And at the time I was up in a gun Mount, 20
millimeter anti-aircraft mount, there to help.
I wasn't behind the gun.
And I was there to kind of help the gunner move
his mount, which he scolded me for, because
I saw some of the kamikazes coming down.
And he told me, No, no, don't be trying to push
me around to aim at the-I'll take
care of it.
So I released myself from that.
And the kamikaze crashed into the deck before I
fully ducked down, because we were right
up almost level with the flight deck and that's
where the kamikaze crashed into the ship.
We were on the port side, he crashed in just
deck side of our island, which in footage
which was probably about forty or fifty feet
away from where I was.
You were close.
I was close.
It was close.
And of course there was a fire that carried on.
This was off Samar Island in the Philippines,
and a hundred miles offshore.
So guys were killed, guys were hurt?
There were deaths, unfortunately, but there
was, I think, close to 60 casualties and dead
people that were in ready rooms, in particular,
and some down below because the kamikazes
bomb traveled down to the third deck, and I
think it exploded on the way and killed
killed sailors down below so was the Franklin
withdrawn from service and
shipped back to be there the ship the ship had
to be sent back to the States
they thought maybe at first they could get
fixed fixed up at Pearl Harbor and
when we did get back we were sent to Pearl
Harbor but we got there they
couldn't handle the damage that was done and
sent us to Bremerton. Bremerton, that
was up Seattle, Washington. Washington, yeah.
So that was, well before that we, our
captains were changed too because I think our
captain was up pretty much his
time. Shoemaker. Captain Shoemaker was a
terrific, terrific captain. He was a good
He was a good guy, huh?
He was a good guy, and he was right in there
when we were attacked by the torpedo
planes and so forth.
Understand he was at the wheel steering that
ship through that action.
But anyway, we had a change of command before
we went back to the States.
We got a new captain, Captain Gurries.
He was a different kind of guy.
He turned out to be a different kind of guy.
I didn't have much contact with him.
I was only at the time, I think I was still a
seaman first.
Who was your officer?
Officer's name was George Stone, commander.
When I first got on the ship, he was
lieutenant, but he was promoted to lieutenant commander.
He was in the V-5 division, which were all the
ordnance men.
Also, V-5 included the guys that gassed the
planes up.
So Franklin was repaired and upgraded, I
suspect, and then she went back.
She went back.
Under a new commanding officer.
New commanding officer.
What did you do while she was being repaired in Bremerton?
Well, for the most part, when we got to
Bremerton, half the crew was given-sent home on leave.
And I think it was less than a month.
Missed Christmas at home, but I was in the
first group that did go on leave.
So you got leave to go back home? home.
Which was on the opposite side.
It was on the Atlantic side.
Yeah, a long run. Right.
To get there.
So I had to take a couple different trains to
get there. Right.
And then, of course, when I came back, then the
ship was still being repaired, and it
would be that the other half of the crew went
home, if they got to be home at Christmas.
And I spent Christmas with a family, a Seattle
family, who had invited a couple of sailors
to join them for Christmas dinner.
That was nice.
So then she went back into action, and you did, too.
And I understand they took on some new crew,
some of the-of course, the whole air group
was replaced.
We were initially with Air Group 13, but we
were replaced by Air Group 5, which also had
fighter planes and dive bombers and torpedo planes.
We did have something different as well as far
as our fighter planes go.
We had three Marine air squadrons that flew
F-4Us, Corsairs, terrific plane.
So you're back to sea and where does she go?
Well let me think now.
Well, we were sent up to, we were sent to start
striking Japan, the home islands.
Because this is getting to be into March of,
February and March of 45. Exactly.
Iwo Jima had been invaded in early March,
actually February.
February, yeah.
But fighting was still going on even when we
went out there.
But we were sent in a task group of a task-a
group of a-that was part of a task force
that went up to Japan to start bombing the
enemy islands.
So you're not so far away from the main islands then.
Well, we got pretty close.
I wasn't kept in, you know, the-where we were going.
People didn't tell me, hey, Walt, hang on,
we're going to Japan.
They didn't call you up and tell you exactly
where they were going?
No, but we worked ourselves for about three
days pushing bombs from one end of the ship
to the other, it seemed, sending them up and
loading planes.
And two days out from the islands, we started
bombing them.
And it was on the third day that the ship got
hit by the enemy.
This is the 19th of March.
19 March.
Tell me what happened.
Well, I was down in the mess hall, the forward
mess hall, crew mess hall that took care of
mostly airmen, people that worked for the Air Department.
They had two sections of where the crew would
have their meals, either forward of the galley
or to the rear of the galley.
I think the rear mess halls were much larger
than the forward mess hall, but I was in the
forward mess hall. And this was sort of ending
up the three days of loading bombs and so
forth pretty much without any rest, and we were
pretty beat.
I took advantage of a cot that was in the mess
hall, a canvas cot.
This was the same mess hall that I spent my
first night on the ship, sleeping in a hammock,
which wasn't very successful, but the second
night I slept on a deck rather than swinging
in a hammock.
was pretty dangerous. But anyway, this is
serious times now. We're pretty close to
Japan and I was heading for my bunk, which had
been moved after the ship had been repaired
at Bremert and so forth. I had a different
place. I had a regular cruise quarters bunk
and so forth. And that's where I was heading.
But I didn't go very far from where my workstation
I was in charge of that elevator, the elevators
on that deck was a third deck of the ship.
And it was where the bombs would come up from
the magazines on one elevator and get moved
over and put on another elevator, either sent
to the hangar deck or all the way up to the
flight deck where they would be put on the planes.
And anyway, I had sent the other guys that were
working at those elevators, told them
to go hit the sack or whatever they wanted to do.
And I would straighten up the place.
And once I did that, and I was heading for my
bunk, I saw this cot, and that's as far
as I got.
I got on that cot, and I think before my head
hit the canvas, I was sleeping.
And it was about less than a half an hour later
when the bomb struck.
And I was either on the deck from the
concussion of the first explosion, which
happened on
the hangar deck, not too far directly above me,
maybe one compartment forward.
But on the hangar deck is where it exploded.
And then I heard another bomb go off, which was
further aft of the ship, which caused
a lot of the ships, a lot of the planes that
were loaded with bombs and ammunition and
And of course, all gassed up to start exploding
and burning and so forth, and that also filtered
down into the hangar deck, the aft end of the
hangar deck, where there were warplanes
already gassed up, some of them with bombs,
with loaded bombs.
And all of the, you know, the aft end of the
ship pretty much was blowing up and fires
going off, and all the way up to almost the
forward end of the island and below.
Fortunately I was at the forward part of that,
and it didn't reach me where I was on the
third deck.
Didn't have to go too far on a third deck if
you went towards the rear of the ship to start
running into fires and so
forth, but I was clear of that and
Anyway, that's where I was when the bomb
Struck what'd you do? What did I do?
We still had live bombs
They're the elevators that I had been
operating, and they were fused up. And a good
friend, once the bombing started and so forth,
he was coming through the mess hall, saw me
standing in the middle of this messing compartment,
Looking through and looking directly into the
officers' wardroom mess hall where they
were bringing in bodies that looked like they
were burnt to a crisp.
Some might have been alive and a doctor or
whoever was directing them to put the person
on this, just put them on this table and it was
a triage thing going on.
But anyway, this friend of mine came up, what
are you going to do Walt, you want to go up
to the flight deck?
And I said, no, I've got to stay here and take
care of these bombs, I can't leave
them fused up like this.
So he stayed with me and a couple of other
ordnance men came by.
We defused the bombs that were still there.
was about a half dozen of them, and took them
out, put the plugs back in the bomb, put the
fuses away and cans and so forth.
And I couldn't do anything more with the bombs.
Just leave them on skids, made sure they were
tied to the skids, but couldn't send them
down below.
I couldn't take a chance.
And it wasn't any way - the elevators weren't
operating anyway.
So we had to leave and we went forward and took
the ladders up that we could towards
the folks on the, and on the way we ran into
some sailors that were, that were killed by
concussion and stopped and looked at them and
checked them out to see if they were breathing,
which they weren't, and couldn't do anything
with them.
We continued on to the Fo'c'sle, which had
quite a number of people there.
I didn't have much clothing on me since I'd
been working down on the third deck for so
many days.
It was like I think I just had a t-shirt above
it and didn't have a work shirt on me.
I'm pretty sure I had shoes, of course I had
trousers, I'm pretty sure I had shoes.
But my friend, his name was Arthur Alameda, he
found me a life jacket, got me a life jacket
had a helmet. There were supplies of them up
there on the Fo'c'sle deck. And once
I got those on, we did go up to the flight deck.
What did you see?
Well, I saw a lot of ship burning, exploding,
parts of planes flying through-I mean,
being sent through the air, so one that just
traumatized, not traumatized me, I just had
to stop and watch a four-prop propeller going
through like a boomerang out to the port.
It looked like it went out a half mile or so,
and I was wondering if it was going to
returned like a boomerang to the ship, but it
didn't of course. And then Father O'Callaghan
was coming and trying to get guys to come up
and handle some hoses and so forth, which
turned out to be kind of a lost cause. I didn't
go with Father O'Callaghan, but my friend
Arthur did. I stayed at that spot for just a
little longer. But they ran into the smoke
and it turned out the fire hoses were, there
was no water coming out of them anyway. But
then the tiny Tims start zooming down the deck.
I thought we were being shelled by.
Those are the small rockets that-
No, these were the big tiny Tims. They were the
big ones. They had 11-inch, you know, nose
cones on them, whatever you call projectiles.
They were large, large rockets.
So are there other ships coming to assist the
Franklin at this point?
Well, there were some ships that tried to,
there were some destroyers that were picking up
sailors that were trapped on the, I didn't see
this happening, but I know it did happen.
and I saw, seen pictures of it.
I did see some destroyers close by,
and they were picking up crew members that went into,
be they enlisted or officers,
there were a lot of members of the crew
that were blown out into the ocean and so forth.
By this time, the ship was coming to a halt, it
lost its power too.
There was one particular ship that came close
by using their own hoses to try to hose down
some of the fire and so forth, but they had to
pack off some also because there were some
explosions and it was it was just too dangerous
for them being so close they
could get who knows what was gonna gonna happen.
There were still a lot of bombs
on our ship. Some of them were fused and armed.
Well I think well there were
there were the ones that were in the planes
that were being blown up and I
don't think that I don't think that there were
of course I told you that we
were up forward of where a lot of the
explosions and fire was going on and
they were defused but there were bombs in the
magazines and it and it didn't
They didn't need fuses if they had got the heat
or other explosions set them off.
But there were plenty of bombs on board in the magazines.
So did it look like the ship was going to go down?
Well I thought it was.
I thought the ship was going to be sunk.
I thought it was going to sink.
It was listing and it wasn't really safe to run
around on the deck on the flight deck.
Lean it as it was, I mean you could slip and
who knows.
But the Santa Fe, the cruiser that was using
their hose to fight fire and so forth did
come back.
It had separated from us.
We had initially linked to them by lines, which
I helped to hold onto and they were
transferring badly wounded and so forth onto
the Santa Fe.
of that as well. There were some of the
admirals. The admiral for our task group was on board
the ship and he took his staff with him, those
that weren't killed. And they had a number
of staff people killed as well. And Admiral
Davidson. But he had to take his flag and
transferred to another-
To a destroyer or something, I think.
No, he went over to the other carrier.
Oh, another carrier.
That was in our task group.
But the Santa Fe was the main one.
The Pittsburgh was also there.
It eventually took the ship in tow.
But I was transferred myself.
myself, we got-it wasn't an abandoned ship
call, but orders were given out on the
flight deck that members of the Air Department
that weren't trained to fight the fires
in a situation like that, they wanted to get
them off the ship because there were probably
several hundred standing on the flight deck
just standing there maybe trying to
keep the chill off because it was pretty cold
up there in March so you were
transferred to another ship so eventually the
the the air Air
department divisions v1 through V5 were
transferred over to those that were up
there on attack. Anybody in that group were
told to get over onto the Santa Fe.
And so some of them got over there on, through
rope. I, myself, when it came to
The V-5 division, telling V-5, which were all
the ordnance men and guys that put cats
into the planes and so forth, whoever was up
there that heard that command, was given
by an officer by voice saying, all personnel
from V-1, all personnel, when he saw them
move over to the Santa Fe, he would go through
V2 and finally he got to V5 and I thought
it was the best orders that anybody would, was
the best thing to do at the time.
And I met the gentleman later on that gave
those oral orders.
That was a fellow named Red Morgan.
He was an officer.
Started off in the Navy.
Had a nice long naval history.
Guy taught pilots how to fly.
Became an officer.
But he was the guy that was shouting those
orders to move over to the Santa Fe.
And he had gotten his orders from either
the-well, they came from the captains or the
air director.
So they stabilized the ship and they towed her
for a while.
No, it was over on Santa Fe.
Okay, so you're not on her anymore.
No, eventually I'm watching what's going on and
we're drifting apart.
We got a distance away, but we could still see
some smoke coming up and so forth.
I could see when the ship was attacked again by
a Japanese plane, which fortunately the
one that I saw crashed into the sea and didn't
do any further damage.
But I understand they shot one down as well.
But I was on to Santa Fe at that time.
Did you go back to the Franklin?
I only went back when we reached Hawaii.
I eventually got moved from the Santa Fe to the
Oneida, which was an APA.
It took a lot of 800-some of the crew back to Hawaii.
We saw the Franklin again back in Hawaii, tied
up, and we were given some time notice
if we went aboard.
We could go aboard, they gave us fifteen
minutes to find our lockers and take our personal
stuff out of the lockers if they still existed.
Is that what you did?
And that's what I did.
So you left her at that point?
that's the last time I saw the Franklin yeah I
heard that later there was a fair amount of
controversy with regard to the captain and
whether people had been allowed to leave the ship
and desertion charges and all that were you
aware of any of that initially initially it was not
Not initially.
I was not-
Heard about it later.
Well, heard about it there in Hawaii, that the
captain was charging some people that
went over on-it almost sounded like anybody
that left the ship was going to be charged
with abandoning- Desertion.
Desertion almost.
desertion almost, but it turned out that I
guess he was talking more of a-he did.
There were people that weren't in the Air
Department, other than wounded, that certainly
should have been taken off, that weren't part
of the Air Department, that were part
of the ship's crew that did go over onto the
Santa Fe.
They may have seen Air department members going
over there and read that into their brain.
And that was-anybody up here was going to
eventually go over there.
So you were separated from the ship at this
point, and did you go back to the States?
Or did you-
No, I spent the next six months on the Hawaiian Islands.
Initially, I spent a couple of weeks up in a
place called Aiea,
which was a transient station for Navy and
Marine personnel
to stay until they found other places to be assigned.
It was a transient station.
So I spent a couple of weeks there before I was
sent over to, with a group of guys, over to
Maui, you know.
But in all, I was there for about six months,
and it was a very pleasant time.
You know, of course, it was shocking to hear
that when I got over to Maui that our president died.
You know, I heard that.
The first thing they did was interview me,
intelligence, and they wanted to know what
happened, what I did, and how come I was there,
and so forth.
So pretty much I'm telling him, not quite in
the same tone, because it was really part
of an investigation.
I thought it was probably a routine thing to do
anyway, but-
Yeah, it was a major hit on a major ship, so
we're talking big deal here. Right.
But anyway, I had a real fine time in Hawaii.
Every week we had to have some kind of
recreation-steak fries or, you know, a case of beer.
One week on the station, they had a nice beach
there, and the next week, we would take a
ride to some other part of Maui, usually at a
beachside, but it wasn't always a beachside.
They had a place called Twin Falls, which was
inland, that you could go swimming and
so forth and places to cook up steaks and things.
So it was a rest and recreation period for me.
Right, right.
What do you think about the Japanese after what
you saw happening?
The Japanese, of course, they were the enemy.
I didn't love any Japanese.
But there were probably a lot of Japanese on Hawaii.
They were the enemy.
So at this point, you went in when you were seventeen.
So you went through all of this when you were
not even eighteen, or were you just eighteen?
Oh, I was 18 because I turned 18 in October of 44.
Right, right.
So you were 18.
I turned 18.
We took that kamikaze on the 30th.
My birthday was the 29th.
Oh, my gosh.
But it was actually the 28th back in the States.
Yeah, you were across the baseline.
So it was Admiral Halsey's birthday, by the
way, October 30th.
So here you are 18 and you just went through
hell, how did that change you as a person?
Well, that's a long time ago.
I had six months to-on the highlands to
recover, you know, rest and recreation.
And I would probably get a little nervous if I
heard an explosion, but I don't think
it changed me.
I think I grew up.
I grew up some.
I wasn't a kid.
Well, it wasn't a change. Yeah.
That's true.
And after six months, I got our orders to
depart and go back to the States.
I was going to go on leave, and went back on-I
forget the name of the ship now, but
I shouldn't-was part of-it was a-pre-war, it
was a passenger ship, part of the Hawaiian
presidential lines or something, I forget the
name of the ship, but it was a nice trip
back, took about three days or so to get back
to the West Coast, and got a train and went
to the East coast.
And what I was doing with my lead, well, when
my lead was coming up, I had to come back
to the West Coast for assignment, which was not
very bright of the Navy to spend all that
time back and forth.
But the next six months I spent down in an
auxiliary airfield just below San Diego, just
below Coronado, if you're familiar with that area.
It was called-it was a naval-it was a utility field.
It's now called Imperial Beach.
It got its name several years after I was
there, but it was a beautiful place.
Nice beach.
I used to go to the beach there, where there
weren't very many people on an air station
because the war was over, and they probably
didn't have more than two hundred people
on the air station.
But any time I wasn't working, I had a free
gangway, walked down to the beach and pretty
much had this beautiful beach all to myself at times.
So was the war over at this point?
Yeah, the war was over now.
We're talking about Mid-October I left Hawaii,
went to the West Coast and then to the East
coast and back to the West Coast, and it was
well worth it.
Have you ever had dreams about- Oh, yeah.
Plenty still do.
Is that right? Yeah, still do.
Now, of the 18 of us that went aboard ship
together from Ordnance School,
Ten of them were killed, you know, so eight of
us survived.
You know, I dream about those guys.
I still do.
Not as much now as I used to, but I know their names.
I know every one of them that lived or died, and...
I appreciate you spending the time with us.
Well, thank you for having me.
Thank you.
Sorry to keep you moving.
Thank your museum too for having us.
It's our pleasure.
Thank you, Sir.
Thank you. Great.