USS Franklin (CV-13)

The Franklin in Norfolk, February 1944
Overview
Type	Essex class (1st group)
Shipyard	Newport News Shipbuilding
Keel laying	December 7, 1942
Launch	October 14, 1943
1. Period of service
Commissioning	January 31, 1944
Decommissioning	February 17, 1947
Whereabouts	scrapped
Technical specifications
displacement	27,100 tons
length	266 m
width	45 m
Draft	8.8 m
crew	3448 men
drive	4 gear turbines, 4 shafts, total 110 MW
speed	33 knots
Range	16,900 nm at 15 kn
Armament	4 × twin 5-inch guns 4 × 5 inch guns 8 × quadruple 40 mm flak 46 × 20 mm guns
Planes	80-100
Radio call sign	November - Foxtrot - Bravo - Mike

The USS Franklin (CV-13) was an aircraft carrier of the Essex class . The ship, which carried on the tradition of the name USS Franklin in the United States Navy , was in service with the fleet from January 1944 to February 1947. The carrier was badly damaged twice in the Pacific War . In October 1944, two kamikaze pilots pounced on the Franklin , killing 56 sailors. After the repair work, another attack followed on March 19, 1945. 743 sailors died after two Japanese bomb hits led to serious explosions and fires on board. These were the heaviest losses any American aircraft carrier suffered during World War II . The necessary repairs continued well after the end of the war. Due to the circumstances, the Franklin was not used again.

technology

For full technical details, see the class article under Essex class

The USS Franklin belonged to the first group of the Essex class, the so-called "short hull" ships. In the construction waterline, the hull was 250.1 meters long and 28.4 meters wide, the overall length was 267.2 meters, and the maximum width of the flight deck was 45 meters. The original draft of 7 meters later increased to 8.7 meters. The armor was 102 mm on the waterline, 38 mm on the flight deck and 76 mm on the hangar deck.

The steam for the four geared turbines that drove the four propellers was generated in eight boilers with a steam temperature of 454 ° C and a pressure of 39 bar. The total power of the drive was 110 MW, the maximum speed of the Franklin was 33 knots , the range with the 6,161 tons of fuel on board was between 4,100 nautical miles at maximum speed and 16,900 nautical miles at 15 knots.

Up to 100 aircraft could be carried on board the carrier. In October 1944, who was Carrier Air Wing 13 with 31 Grumman F6F - fighters , 31 Curtiss SB2C - Sturzkampf- and 18 Grumman TBM - torpedo bombers on board. In March 1945 the Carrier Air Wing 5 came on board, the air group then consisted of 32 Chance Vought F4U fighters, four F6F-5N night fighters , two F6F-5P reconnaissance aircraft , 15 SB2C dive bombers and 15 TBM torpedo bombers .

The Franklin was equipped with twelve 127-mm guns, eight of which were in four Mark 32 twin towers on the island, the rest in single mounts below the flight deck on the port side. In addition, 32 40-mm Bofors guns were housed in eight quadruple mounts and 46 light 20-mm Oerlikon cannons .

history

Franklin after the ship's christening

Construction and testing

The Franklin's keel was laid on December 7, 1942, a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor , at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News , Virginia . After ten and a half months of construction, the aircraft carrier was floated out of dry dock on October 14, 1943 after it was christened by Mildred H. McAfee , the commander of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) . The commissioning took place after further equipment work on January 31, 1944.

The first test drive took the carrier to Trinidad in the Caribbean . After completing the tests, he then crossed the Panama Canal and joined Task Group 27.7 in San Diego to complete first operational exercises.

1944

In June 1944, the Franklin set out for the Western Pacific and drove via Pearl Harbor to Eniwetok , where she joined the Fast Carrier Task Force as part of Task Group 58.2. On June 30, Franklin carrier aircraft bombed Japanese airfields and docks in the Ogasawara Islands during the Battle of the Mariana Islands . On July 4th, the planes flew further attacks on Iwojima , Chichi-jima and Haha-jima in order to take out Japanese reinforcements. Two days later, air strikes began on Guam and Rota in preparation for the US Marines amphibious landing operations on July 21. During the landing operation, the carrier's aircraft flew close air support missions . After a brief refueling stop on Saipan , Task Group 58.2 ran into an attack on Palau , which took place on July 25th and 26th and damaged or destroyed several airfields and ports. Two days later the porter left for Saipan, where he was assigned to Task Group 58.1 the following day. At the beginning of August he took part in an attack against the Ogasawara Islands, in which airfields and ships were again attacked.

The Franklin on August 1, 1944

From August 9 to 28, the Franklin was overhauled and serviced in Eniwetok Atoll, after which it ran together with the Enterprise and the light aircraft carriers Belleau Wood and San Jacinto for a further attack against the Ogasawara Islands. During the air raids between August 31 and September 2, several ships were sunk and several Japanese aircraft were destroyed.

After the porter had bunkered again on Saipan, he ran as part of Task Group 38.1 to Yap , where air strikes against Japanese positions were carried out from September 3 to 6. On September 15, Franklin aircraft provided close air support to landing forces during the Battle of Peleliu . On the way to Palau there was bunkering at Manus . The Franklin , now the flagship of Task Group 38.4, began air strikes in preparation for landing on Leyte on October 9, along with other aircraft carriers . On October 13, she was just missed by two torpedoes and a Japanese kamikaze plane. The following day attacks on Japanese positions in the Philippines intensified. On October 16, a Japanese bomber hit the Franklin's outer elevator, killing three crew members. On October 19, the carrier's planes attacked around Manila Bay . The following day, during the first amphibious landings on Leyte , the carrier aircraft operated against Japanese airfields around the landing zone.

Franklin (right) and Belleau Wood on fire after the kamikaze hits

On the morning of October 24th, Franklin aircraft were involved in the sinking of the Japanese battleship Musashi during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea , the day after in the damage to the Chiyoda and the sinking of the Zuihō during the battle off Cape Engaño . On October 27, the Franklin resumed operations in the Leyte area after a short break. On October 30, the carrier, along with other ships of Task Group 38.4, was about 1,600 kilometers off the coast of Samar when the formation was attacked by several Japanese aircraft. Three kamikaze pounced on the Franklin . The first machine hit the aircraft carrier on the starboard side, while the second broke through the flight deck and exploded in the hangar deck. The third plane missed the Franklin , but hit the Belleau Wood . 56 sailors died and 60 were injured on the Franklin . Both porters drove to Ulithi Atoll , where they were makeshift repairs. The Franklin then drove to Bremerton , where it arrived on November 28th and was fundamentally repaired and overhauled in the Puget Sound Navy Yard .

March 19, 1945

The repair work lasted until the end of January 1945. On February 2, the Franklin Bremerton left for the first tests. At the beginning of March, she ran back to Japan and joined Task Force 58 on March 15 to support air strikes against the main Japanese islands. On the morning of March 19, she was only about 50 nautical miles off the coast of Honshūs when the carrier aircraft took off to air raids on Kobe .

The Franklin is burning in the water with a heavy list

Unmolested by American fighters, a Japanese bomber of the Aichi B7A Ryusei ("Grace") type broke through the cloud cover and pounced on the Franklin . The aircraft dropped two armor-piercing bombs on the carrier's flight deck, both of which penetrated the deck. The first bomb exploded below the deck in the hangar and destroyed the pilots' ready rooms, the carrier's operations center and the air surveillance. The second bomb exploded in the aft hangar deck, setting bombs, missiles, and fuel on fire.

As a result of the explosions, the boilers and turbines failed, and with them the electricity on board. The Franklin lay listless in the water and got through the masses of the pumped aboard extinguishing water fast 13 degree list to starboard. The electrical communication systems on board had also failed, which made it almost impossible to coordinate the extinguishing work. 724 sailors died and 264 were wounded as a result of the explosions and fire on board. The cruiser Santa Fe rushed to the rescue and supported the aircraft carrier's crew with the fire-fighting work. The Santa Fe also took many wounded on board, as well as crew members who could not help on board the carrier. Only a core crew of about 700 sailors remained on board the Franklin , who tried to restart the machinery after the fires were extinguished and the carrier was towed by the cruiser Pittsburgh .

repair

The destroyed flight deck of the Franklin , with the Manhattan skyline in the background

The crew succeeded in reactivating the drive so that the Franklin could approach the Ulithi Atoll on its own. From there she drove to Pearl Harbor, where the ship was temporarily repaired. From Hawaii, the carrier drove to New York City , where it arrived on April 28th. The next day, he went into dry dock at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn . In order to repair the serious damage to the carrier, the entire superstructure above the hangar deck was dismantled and rebuilt. At the end of the Second World War, the work was not yet completed, but it was finished by early 1946.

Whereabouts

In April 1946, the Navy leadership decided to assign the Franklin to the reserve fleet as it was in very good condition for repairs. In Bayonne , New Jersey mothballed it was (CVA-13) reclassified on 1 October 1952 attack carrier, on August 8, 1953 antisubmarine warfare carrier (CVS-13) and on 15 May 1959 training aircraft carrier (AVT-8 ). The Franklin was never actively used again. On October 1, 1964, she was struck from the register of ships and released for scrapping. After it had already been sold to the Peck Iron and Metal Company in Portsmouth , Virginia , the US Navy needed the four Franklin turbo generators as spare parts and bought them back. On July 27, 1967, it was finally sold to the Portsmouth Salvage Company in Chesapeake , where it was completely abandoned in the following years.

Awards

The Franklin received four Battle Stars for their service in the Pacific, Navy Chaplain Joseph T. O'Callahan and Lieutenant Donald A. Gary were awarded the Medal of Honor on March 19, 1945 for their heroic service .

literature

• Steve Jackson: Lucky Lady. The World War II Heroics of the USS Santa Fe and Franklin. Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York NY 2003, ISBN 0-7867-1061-6 .
• Joseph A. Springer: INFERNO. The Epic Life and Death Struggle of the USS Franklin in World War II. Zenith Press, St. Paul MN 2007, ISBN 978-0-7603-2982-5 .
• Stefan Terzibaschitsch : aircraft carrier of the US Navy. 3rd, expanded edition. Bernard and Graefe, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-7637-6200-0 .

Web links

Commons : USS Franklin (CV-13)  - album containing pictures, videos and audio files

• History of Franklin (English)
• Images of Franklin (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ navsource.org , as of September 14, 2007
2. ↑ Terzibaschitsch: aircraft carrier of the US Navy. 2001, p. 335.
3. ↑ Terzibaschitsch: aircraft carrier of the US Navy. 2001, p. 368.
4. ↑ navsource.org as of September 14, 2007

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 4, 2007 .