S--(Sc 2) Statesman, Salem, Ort., Monday, March 14, 195S
'
Navy CHaplain Helped to Save
Strir4cfTi Carrier 10 Years A?o
(Editor! Note; By all odds, the
USS Franklin should have gone to
the bottom. The Japanese dive
bomber pilot who dropped two 500
pound bombs on her just 10 years
. ago tua nis joo weu, oui ine r ran&-
lin's crew wrote a valiant new
chapter in naval history and re
fused to abandon ship. Here's a
recollection of what happened by
the Franklin's chaplain, awarded
the Medal of Honor for the part he
played in saving her J
By TOM HORGAN
WORCESTER. Mass. li The
news cameraman said he'd like to
make a picture of the priest wear
ing his Medal of Honor, the na
tion's highest and rarest decora
tion for courage. No other chap
lain has won it.
"Sorry, said Father Joseph T.
O'Callahan, "but it's locked in the
library safe. I've told them not to
show it until after I'm dead."
Such modesty is characteristic of
Father O'Callahan, who was called
by his skipper "The bravest man I
ever knew" after a Japanese dive
bomber made the carrier USS
Franklin a raging inferno of de
struction and death 10 years ago.
Father O'Callahan, 49, has re
turned to Holy Cross College,
.which he left for the wars in 1940,
Young Pupils
Take Foreign
Languages
ANN" ARBOR, Mich. (J) About
125 elementary school children
here are learning a foreign lan
guage. It's part of an educational
Idea that has spread across the
country since 1947. More than 700
elementary schools are teaching
foreign languages. Ann Arbor is
typical. Third, fourth and fifth
traders are taking part.
Associate Prof. Otto G. Graf, "of
Ithe " University of Michigan and
two assistants teaching French,
Spanish and German find that
children having difficulty with
'reading English are the first to
pick up the idea of the foreign
language. i
; This, he said, is "partially be
cause their verbal abilities are
better than ther reading abilities
at the moment and partially be
cause foreign language excites
their imagination, while reading
does not."
The object of the classes, Graf
cays, is to help break down the
one-language barrier in students'
minds and to help them in later
studies.
Police Check
Woo's Laundry
PEORIA, III. (UP) Assistant
Fire Chief Rudy Kneer radioed a
police dispatcher to check the
owner of Woo's Laundry here and
ask him to open the door.
The fireman had answered an
alarm at the laundry address, and
wanted to get in to see if the
place was okay.
"Who's laundry?' asked dis
patcher Roy King.
"That's Tight," Kneer replied.
King consulted a city directory.
C-C-C-COLD
FORT MYERS, Fla. tf) It was a
mighty chilly night for the parade.
Taking a realistic view of the sit
uation, the Fort Myers News-Press
used this banner headline over the
story: "Th-th-tbousands eti-cbeer
p-p-parade."
but for him the cloistered quiet of
the campus still is invaded by the
clamor of battle.
Teaches Young Boys
There he teaches boys too young
fo remember when the world was
afire, while writing his recoD.ec
ions of a period when one dy of
terror encroached upon the next
too rapidly to consider the calen
dar. The interview was fa Father
O'Callahan's austere little room
typical Jesuit quarters crowded
with books and papers, desk and
typewriter, narrow bed and chairs
and three potted plants.
One of few decorations was a
small ditty bag on which the Star
of David was embossed.
Contained Letters
"Before we went into action,'
he explained, "one of the boys
asked me to keep it for him. It
contained letters which he said he
was afraid he might lose. I mailed
the letters later, but I kept the
ditty bag. The boy was killed;"
The "boy" was only one of about
1,000 who gave their lives serving
the Franklin. Asked the number
of casualties among the carrier's
complement of more than 3,000,'
the priest said: "Just about ev
eryone was a casualty, killed,
burned or wounded." -
As one of the latter, he would
easily qualify for the role of dis
abled veteran, but he waives it.
Captain Stripes
Father O'Callahan, who- joined
the Navy's Chaplain Corps as a
lieutenant junior grade and now
rates a captain's four stripes, de
scribed as "a very good pilot" the
Japanese who bombed the Frank
lin, a 27,000-ton Essex Class 'car
rier, on March of 1945, off Kobe,
Japan.
"We shot him down, but a few 1
seconds too late," he adds.
As fires and explosions spread
rapidly throughout the big ship.
Father O'Callahan said his first
concern was ; his duty as a chap
lain, ministering to the wounded
and dying . many of them died
in my arms." '
His second concern was to get
wounded transferred to the cruiser
Santa Fe, which skillfully maneu
vered alongside the Franklin, dead
in the water and listing badly.
Because of Cross y-
Capt. Leslie E. Genres, of the
Franklin, was able to identify him
and get his attention, the priest
recalls, because of the cross paint
ed on his helmet. Most of those
aboard soon were so covered by
soot and grease they were unrecog
nizable. The captain was . able to
direct him to where he was most
needed. j
One such spot was a 5-inch gun
turret, crammed with live ammu
nition and burning fiercely. Father
O'Callahan led a fire-fighting de
tail which, because of intense heat
and smoke, could work only in re
lays inside the turret while over
coming flames and jettisoning am
munition. Shell casings were so
hot, hands were burned.
Must Be Dumped
"Capt. Genres told me that un
less the ammunition were dumped,
it would blow-up." Father O'Cal
lahan says. So the priest organized
two groups of 10 men to get the
ammunition overboard bucket-brigade
fashion.
The Franklin was attacked at
sunrise and fire-fighting continued
until long after sunset, with es
caping airplane gasoline feeding
the flames. She was taken in tow
by the cruiser Pittsburgh and even
tually her own propelling machine
ry was restored.
Japanese aerial attacks contin
ued three days, during which hun
dreds of burials at sea were con
ducted in grim and almost unend
ing repetition.
Band Survives
As his concern turned from the
dead to the living. Father O'Cal
lahan recalls he marshaled sur
vivors of the ship's band, which
had labored throughout the emer
gency in fire-fighting and rescue
work, and two musical instruments
which had escaped destruction.
These were supplemented with two
kettles, as drums.
The padre sent his bedraggled
gang up to the bridge to serenade
the captain with parodies, one to
the effect that "The old big Ben,
she ain't what she used to be."
The captain, in turn, detailed the
"band" to tour the ship.
"Those parodies put us over the
crisis, cut tension the men
saved their ship and their sanity;
it was a tough time," Father
O'Callahan says.
Good news awaited him when he
reached Pearl Harbor, however.
One of his two sisters. Sister Rose
Marie, of the Maryknoll Order, had
been unreported since her capture
by the Japanese at Manila. At
Pearl Harbor, he learned she had
survived. She is still on duty in J
the Philippines.
The Franklin made it back to
the states, eventually, a proud
tribute to the perseverance - and
faith of her crew.
Lighting fCan
Double9 Size
Of Dwelling
PITTSBURGH (UP) A
lighting specialist for one of the
nation's largest electrical manu
facturing concerns ' says most
American home owners can "dou
ble" the size of their homes at
an average cost of $100.
The trick is in installing a
more efficient- electrical system,
and extending new wiring to
hitherto unused portions of. the
home.
"Home lighting is the new
American hobby," said . E. W.
Beggs, lighting specialist for
Westihghouse Electric Corp.
"Spend $100 and double the size
of your house." -
Beggs explained . that many
home owners "are putting in
basement recreation rooms, made
possible, of course, because of
lighting. Others are lighting their
garden and enjoying outdoor liv
ing in the cool of the evening.
The rest of us are at last getting
around to lighting our homes
better so we can live more fully
in them." .
Students Write
Own Text Book
NEWTON, Mass. U.R Grade
school pupils in Newton are getting
a new text book written by a
group of high school students.
"A Young Citizens'. History of
Newton" started as a routine proj
ect by ' members of the high
school's English Club two years
ago. .
Faculty adviser M. Roland
Heintzelman was impressed by the
students research in local history.
Under his guidance, a club mem
ber, Joyce Dudley, put them to
gether in book form.
"This is the first time that
car children have actually writ
ten and published their own com
munity's history." Heintzelman
said, "and the first time such a
student publication has been used
as a text for lower graces.
on
IMI
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