Farrell L. Kluttz Narrated An Enjoyable Oral History
There are times when research is tedious. There are other times when it is enjoyable. I have just finished reading an oral history of Farrell L. Kluttz, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. He joined the Navy in 1937 and served in various posts and ships before joining Franklin as a plank owner in January 1944.*
He’d already been torpedoed once during Operation Torch in North Africa while serving on USS Electra (AKA-4), a cargo ship. He tells fascinating stories about the Electra’s captain, who had also captained the USS Panay when the Japanese sunk it in Chinese waters in 1937. He arrived in China a year after the Panay incident. Still, he tells a story about the captain’s actions during the sinking, which, if true, adds to the scholarship of the incident. (Although it sounds like something out of the nautical version of Catch-22.)
The March 19 Attack on Franklin
When the Japanese bomber attacked Franklin on March 19, 1945, Kluttz was in the head on the third deck. He took a winding route to the fantail, where he found about 100 men stranded by fires and explosions. When magazines started exploding, Kluttz soon found that all but one of the group had gone over the side. He shimmied down a monkey line into the water and spent the next four or five hours treading water without a life jacket or life belt. A former Eagle Scout, he credits Boy Scout and Navy training with keeping him alive until USS Hunt rescued him and others.
At Ulithi, he discovered Captain Gehres had requested he return to Franklin. Klutz was the senior Firecontrolman, and Gehres wanted him back on the ship to get as many anti-aircraft guns into commission as possible.
Kluttz also became a member of the 704 Club. Although the club’s membership criteria were that a member had never left the ship after the attack, Kluttz became a member. He was one of a number of members who had left the ship but were permitted to join. He remained assigned to Franklin until she was decommissioned in 1947.
Kluttz’s oral history is housed at the Museum of the Pacific War. I encourage you to listen to or read it. He was a good storyteller.
*A “plank owner” is a crew member who served on the ship when it was commissioned. Kluttz may have been the only man to serve continuously on Franklin, from commissioning to decommissioning.
Did you arrive here via a search engine? I am the author of the forthcoming book Heroes By The Hundreds: The Story of the USS Franklin (CV-13). In addition to writing about the bravery of the crews that saved her, I will discuss the lessons we can learn in leadership and decision-making and the changes the US Navy made because of those lessons.
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-Glenn
