Trial by Fire

by P. T. Deutermann

  One of the talkers piped up with the news that several men were going over the side all the way aft, at the very end of the flight deck that was called the round-down. The fires had become so intense that they could no longer hold on back there. George couldn’t see that end of the ship because of the volcano erupting between him and the round-down, but he could see what looked like two destroyer masts poking up to one side of that gigantic smoke column. They had probably nosed in right up against the carrier’s stern to rescue as many men as possible from the water right behind the ship. Once again, he thought that the fires aft had to be finally diminishing, except for the fact that there was a column of pure flame blowing out of the ship’s starboard side hangar bay doors like a giant acetylene torch. There might be not much left to burn on the flight deck, he thought, but inside, there were a quarter-million gallons of high-octane aviation gasoline available to keep this catastrophe going for damn near ever. Then the captain appeared. His face was flushed, and his eyes were bright, almost wet, as if he’d been weeping. He strode uncertainly to the front windows.

  “Where are all the men who were forward, on the flight deck?” he asked in a tight voice.

  “Down there,” George said, pointing at the still considerable crowd of heads down in the water. “Trying to get pulled aboard Santa Fe before the ships drift together.”

  “They abandoned?” the captain said, his voice rising. “They abandoned ship? Who gave that order? You?!”

  George shook his head. He explained about the anti-aircraft ammo cooking off and how that had made the flight deck untenable.

  “Get ’em back,” the captain roared, but at that moment there was an awful screeching of metal forward as Santa Fe, her port bow still pressed hard against Franklin’s starboard side, began to ever so slowly drift back. Her skipper’s efforts to use his engines to keep the ships from pinching together had somehow put sternway on the smaller ship, and now the chorus of terrified screams from down in the water was as loud as the screeching sounds of the two ships’ hulls dragging against each other. At that moment, a Jap plane came screaming down out of nowhere in a vertical dive and sliced into the water right between the two ships, about a hundred feet astern of the island. It came down so fast that no one actually saw more than a flash of metal and then it was gone, leaving behind only a cruciform of foam in the sea. As hundreds of men on Franklin and Santa Fe stared in stunned surprise, the Jap’s bomb went off underwater, as it always did. The plane by then had to be a hundred feet down, but the shock wave from that explosion, trapped and then focused by the two ships’ underwater hulls, created a fleeting, bright white shock-circle in the water, after which the sounds of the men thrashing about in the water diminished.

  Santa Fe’s guns then resumed firing; this time joined by the cruiser’s six-inch main batteries. She jerked backward to get away from Franklin, gathering sternway with what looked like every one of her guns blazing away. George finally saw why: way down on the near horizon, flying just above the surface of the sea, four enemy torpedo bombers were headed in. They were instantly obscured by all the anti-aircraft shells from Santa Fe, her guns firing so low that some of the shells were skipping out like flat rocks before tumbling into the sea and exploding. George held his breath as the oncoming planes were swallowed up in a storm of AA fire from both Santa Fe and the two destroyers trailing the carrier. He heard booming from ahead of the ship and saw that Pittsburgh had joined in with her AA batteries, even as she was backing the last few feet toward Franklin’s bow.

  It was all over in a few seconds. The cruisers ceased firing, and, as the smoke cleared, nothing remained of the torpedo bombers.

  “Torpedo, starboard side,” one of the lookouts screamed, pointing down into the water. George looked down and actually saw the incoming wake, passing just ahead of Santa Fe and headed straight for Franklin’s starboard side. He unconsciously braced himself for the impact, and then actually felt the thing hit amidships, a one-ton killer going almost fifty miles an hour. He squinted his eyes and felt his toes and fingers curling in anticipation of a blast, but nothing happened. A dud. Thanks be to God.

  He looked around for the captain, who was now standing by his chair in what looked like a total state of shock. Four Corsairs came ripping over the forward flight deck from port to starboard, causing the men clustered on Pittsburgh’s upper AA gun mounts to hit the deck.

  Pittsburgh, he thought. She had backed in so close that he could no longer see her stern or even her after eight-inch turret, because her stern was now practically right under Franklin’s bow.

  “Fo’c’sle reports they’ve got the hawser through the bullnose,” one of the talkers announced. “They’re requesting permission to veer chain when ready.”

  George turned to the captain. “Captain? Pittsburgh is ready to make the tow.”

  The captain looked back at him blankly for a second, and then nodded. Then something blew up behind the island. It made a different sound from the bombs. George whirled around in time to see an entire twin five-inch gun mount go flying across the remains of the flight deck and then off the ship’s port side, dropping a trail of burning powder cans as it went down and out of sight into the sea. For one brief, frantically painful instant, George just wanted to jump off the bridgewing and follow that mount into the calm, soundless depths of the sea.

  27

  The chief came back after fifteen minutes and declared the fireroom to be totally devoid of electrical power. “Everything’s deader’n a doornail,” was the way he put it.

  “Why isn’t there emergency generator power?” Gary asked. “We’ve got two of ’em, Goddammit.”

  “Ain’t no way to tell if either one of them’s up and running, not from here,” the chief said. “One’s all the way forward, the other’s all the way aft.”

  Forget about aft, Gary thought. There’ll be nothing left aft. But, maybe, if he could reach the bridge by sound-powered phone, they might be able to send someone down to check on the forward emergency diesel generator. It lived in a compartment on the second deck, right below the hangar deck, all the way forward, so it might have survived the fires. He went over to the nearest phone selector switch and dialed in the 1JV circuit. He tried every station and got nothing. There was a second barrel switch next to the one he’d tried. The circuit selections on the brass switch were not familiar, so he tried one marked JX and heard voices. Excited voices. It sounded like the signal bridge, or maybe one of the emergency radio-rooms. When there was a momentary pause, he pushed the talk button. “This is two fireroom; I need to talk to anyone on the bridge, and my normal line is down.”

  “What?” a voice asked angrily, as if suspecting a stupid prank.

  Gary tried again. “This is Lieutenant Gary Peck, boilers officer. I’m in the number two fireroom. All my normal comms with the rest of engineering are down. This fireroom is tenable. Please get word to the bridge that I need a dedicated sound-powered phone circuit and emergency electrical power. We’re trying to raise steam and I desperately need power.”

  “Don’t we all, Lieutenant,” an older voice said. “Stay up this circuit. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Gary ordered one of the firemen to strap on a sound-powered phone headset, plug into the JX circuit, and listen for a call.

  Maybe, just maybe, he thought.

  28

  “XO!”

  George blinked and then looked around to see who was calling him this time. It was one of the phone-talkers.

  “Radio Central reports there’s some snipes down in the number two fireroom. They say if they can get some emergency power, they can light off a boiler. They’re on the JX circuit.”

  Radio Central? George wondered. Hunh? But then he went to the phone selector, dialed JX, and called number two fireroom, identifying himself as the XO. A scared-sounding fireman answered him.

  “Let me talk to the senior officer down there,” he ordered. A moment later a voice said: “Lieutenant Gary Peck, B-division officer, s
ir.”

  “Mister Peck, we were told that all the main holes had been smoked out; what’s your status down there?”

  “Hot, with some smoke, but the holes in the uptakes are letting the smoke out now for some unknown reason. If I can get emergency power, I can probably light off a boiler, although first we gotta get about four feet of water or so inside the fireboxes pumped out.”

  “I can probably get some emergency power cables lowered down to you, but as best we know, there’s only one diesel generator available now and that’s carrying Radio Central and the bridge. What little fire main we have is coming from those portable gasoline fire pumps.”

  “The forward emergency diesel generator should have survived all this, XO,” Gary said. “It’s all the way forward and one deck below the hangar deck. If it can be started up and connected to its switchboard, I should be able to tap it down here. If I can get a boiler going, we can make real power for the whole ship.”

  “How the hell can you do that?”

  “One of the ship’s service generators lives in number one engine room, XO—right behind this fireroom. If we can get steam up, we can probably re-energize that engine room, de-smoke it, and roll that generator.”

  Wow, George thought, listening to a distant barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Wouldn’t that be nice. “We’ll give it a try, Mister Peck. We’ve got a whole crew up on the fo’c’sle. The cruiser Pittsburgh is trying to take us under tow. Lemme work it.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Standing by. That generator room is one deck down and a bit aft of the fo’c’sle. And I can tell whoever goes down there how to air-start the generator and line it up to the board.”

  “Got it, Mister Peck. I’m not gonna ask how you got a crew back into a fireroom, but very well done.”

  The captain came over and asked George who he was commending at a time like this. George told him what he’d learned. The captain nodded, but George wasn’t sure he’d actually understood. They walked out to the port bridgewing. Back aft the explosions had quit except for some small-caliber ammo. The flight deck fires had pretty much run out of fuel, but underneath, on the hangar deck and the crumpled gallery deck, there was still an ominous rumbling.

  “Santa Fe is getting ready to stand off,” the captain said. “Our long-distance pickets are reporting a large raid forming up over Kagoshima. He wants to be able to maneuver when they show up.”

  “Can’t blame him; fo’c’sle reports they’ve made Pittsburgh’s towing hawser to our starboard anchor chain; they’re starting to veer chain to set up the tow.”

  “Very well,” the captain said. “Just in time; what took so damned long?”

  “They had to pull the hawser in by hand, sir,” George said, patiently. “It’s six hundred feet long; eight-inch Manila.”

  “So why didn’t they call for more men?”

  “There aren’t any,” George said, gesturing toward the forward flight deck.

  The captain, obviously startled by what George had just reported, started yelling. “What? What?!” he shouted. “What the Goddamn hell does that mean?”

  George wanted to slap him. Where the hell had he been for the past five hours? As he tried to formulate an answer the captain pointed a finger at him. “If I find out you ordered abandon ship, I’ll—”

  George set his face. “You’ll what?” he growled, inspiring a nearby lookout to scamper back into the pilothouse.

  The captain’s eyes widened. Nobody, nobody, in his entire, if short, tenure as CO had ever stood up to him. George bored in.

  “You need to get a hold of yourself, Captain,” he said quietly through clenched teeth. “We have only fragmentary casualty reports from GQ stations around the ship. Most of the sound-powered phone circuits are out. We’ve got fire-main pressure only because of those handy-billys, and maybe, just maybe, the after emergency diesel generator is running. There’s no ship’s service power—anywhere. All the main holes had to be abandoned when the uptake spaces were breached. I’d guess—and that’s all I got right now, is a Goddamned guess—that we lost one-quarter of the crew and most of the air-wing that was still aboard in the first hour. Lost, as in killed. I’d guess over a thousand crewmen went over the side rather than burn to death on the flight deck. I don’t know how many got picked up—the destroyers came in pretty fast. I saw several hundred men go over the side to Santa Fe when exploding ammunition started to strafe the flight deck. If we have six hundred men left aboard I’d be surprised, and of those, half will be wounded.”

  The captain’s face went white. “Six hundred?” he gasped. “Out of a ship’s company of thirty-six hundred?”

  “Yes, sir. I assumed you knew. I assumed you’ve witnessed the same disaster that I have.”

  “Six hundred?” the captain said, ignoring the insult. Now it was almost a whisper.

  “The only reason we’re afloat is that all the damage—so far, anyway—is above the waterline. This list has most likely been caused by firefighting water getting down below. I’ve ordered Central to commence counterflooding, but that takes pumps, and pumps require power. And by the way, Central itself is completely isolated. They’re basically trapped in there until we can get repair parties down into the interior passageways. So right now, yes, I’m working to get some Goddamned electrical power.”

  The captain stood there, all six foot three of him, staring at George like a wounded ghost. George had seen that look before during the Solomons campaigns back in ’42 and ’43. He changed his tone of voice and suggested to the captain that he go sit down in his chair, get some food and coffee. Santa Fe had sent over some cargo nets filled with emergency rations for the past hour—mostly bread, cans of Spam, and jerry cans of potable water. Without the steam plant or electrical power there was apparently no fresh water available anywhere in the ship. There’d been a few rain squalls during the afternoon, which had inspired the men huddling on the flight deck to catch rainwater in their helmets. The skies were overcast even now as evening approached. Good, George thought, as he shivered in the biting wind blowing through the cracked portholes. Harder for the Japs to find us.

  The captain turned obediently around and went to his chair, where he sat down, staring into the gathering darkness. George called the forecastle crew about that emergency generator. Pittsburgh was taking a strain on the towing rig but the carrier was so much bigger than the cruiser that the larger ship’s bow was actually pulling the smaller ship’s stern all over the place. They were moving, at perhaps one knot, but they were getting nowhere. And, crappy weather or not, George knew the Japs by now knew how bad off the Franklin was and were determined to finish the job.

  29

  J.R. came to and discovered to his surprise that Santa Fe was gone. He sat up to make sure, dislodged that all-important belt loop, and began to slide down the tilted sponson deck toward the water. He quickly rolled onto his side, wide awake now as the deck edge approached, until his belt buckle caught on something, spun him around, and brought him up short. He was cold, wet, and sore, and the daylight was fading rapidly. He couldn’t see the horizon anymore. He looked around the sponson deck to see if anyone was there, but there were only small mounds of wet clothes here and there. There was a Corsair propeller assembly at the far corner of the sponson, held in place by one of its blades, which had punched into the deck.

  He realized the ship was rolling a bit. Nothing violent, but a definite pendulum movement in ponderous slow motion. As he took that in, he saw one of those mounds begin to slide toward the deck edge, leaving a dark slick. He caught a glimpse of a human rib cage as it toppled into the sea. He closed his eyes, squeezing hard to banish that picture.

  Where the hell is everybody, he wondered. All those people in the water, and the others up forward, shinnying down monkey-lines and going hand over hand down the tilting radio antennas in an effort to get down to the cruiser’s decks. Oh, shit, he gasped. They’ve abandoned! I’m here all alone and she’s gonna roll over and go down. But then a cold rain squall s
wept in, soaking his clothes and bringing him back around. The ship was moving. Slowly, but she was definitely moving. He’d seen her insides—a tow. They’d sent another ship to take Franklin in tow. He turned sideways on the sloping deck and looked up at the island. He thought he saw indistinct faces out on the bridgewing. He looked forward again, beyond where all those men had gone over the side. There was a ship up front, a cruiser from the shape of her top hampers. He felt instantly better. Gotta get inside, he told himself. This whole thing was just nuts: running from fire and brimstone one moment, longing to get warm and dry again the next. Jee-zus!

  He untangled his belt and crawled upslope to the hatch through which he’d brought everybody out. The actuating handle was only warm, so he opened it and swung it back. He was immediately bowled over by a blast of hot gases that reeked of burning electrical insulation. He tripped over his own feet and then fell backward, sliding faster and faster toward the deck edge again until he was able to grab a stanchion and stop just short of going overboard. Then the stanchion broke. He went over with a yell but managed to grab on with both hands to a fragment of snaking that had been blown down from the flight deck earlier. He hung there for a moment and wondered if things could get any worse. Then he felt a blaze of searing heat across the backs of his hands as all those pent-up and nearly incandescent gases, trapped in the passageway, discovered there was fresh air available and exploded in a jet of flame that shot out over his head and extended fifty feet off the side of the ship like a momentary blowtorch before extinguishing itself. He tried not to cry out when that fireball burned the backs of his hands. Thankfully it was over in an instant, but not before he got a whiff of his own broiled skin.