USS Franklin Supports Peleliu Invasion, September 1944

At the beginning of September 1944, USS Franklin, the flagship of Task Group (TG) 38.4, was leading strikes against Iwo Jima and its sister island, Chi Chi Jima. TG 38.4 was one of four task groups making up Task Force 38, commanded by Admiral Marc Mitscher, who reported to Third Fleet commander Admiral William Halsey.

On board “Big Ben,” as her crew nicknamed her, was Air Group Thirteen, composed of three squadrons: one composed of fighters, one of bombers, and one of torpedo planes.

Other carriers in the task group were the legendary USS Enterprise and USS San Jacinto, a light carrier.¹

(One of the pilots on San Jacinto was Lt. (jg) George H.W. Bush, flying a TBM Avenger for VT-51. Shot down near Chi Chi Jima, he was rescued by a submarine, USS Finback.) ²

From there, they moved to strike Yap and Ulithi on 6-8 September. ³ Yap and Ulithi were in the Caroline Islands, near Peleliu, Anguar, and Babelthuap, which comprised the Palau Islands. Peleliu was 600 miles from the southern Philippines island of Davao. Admiral Chester Nimitz planned to use it to support the invasion of the Philippines, including Leyte.⁴

Halsey Reconsiders

But as the aviators rampaged through the Carolines and Palau islands, Halsey realized there was nowhere near as much resistance as they had expected. He radioed Admiral Nimitz and suggested they bypass them and advance the timetable to invade the Philippines. However, the Navy was already landing frogmen on the beach at Peleliu, and other invasion assets were also in motion. Nimitz believed that calling off the invasion at this point would lead to confusion, so he ordered it to continue. Halsey sent the other three task groups to attack Leyte, Cebu, and Negros in the Philippines. Franklin and TG 38.4 remained to support the invasion at Peleliu and Anguar.⁵

TG 38.4 Attacks

Franklin arrived at Peleliu on 10 September after attacking Yap for three days. She would remain in the area until 16 September, launching five deck loads of planes every day for seven days.⁶

Their first fighter sweep of twelve Hellcats ran into intense and accurate anti-aircraft fire. The Japanese were not using tracers, so the pilots couldn’t see the fire to dodge it. Ensign Norman Drouin and Ensign Paul Rene Parent, both from New Hampshire, were shot down; their bodies were never recovered. Fortunately, these would be the only casualties for the rest of the month.⁷

On 11 September, one SB2C-3 Helldiver dive bomber was set afire over the island. The pilot,  Ensign J.J. Kehoe, ordered the gunner, ARM3c Abner Harris, to bail out. He was rescued by a US submarine on lifeguard duty. Noticing the fire was going out, Kehoe managed to nurse the damaged plane back to the carrier, where its right landing gear collapsed upon landing.⁸ The action report complimented the pilot for returning his aircraft so that parts could be salvaged.

During these seven days, Air Group Thirteen flew 750 combat sorties, including invasion support, combat air patrols (CAP), and anti-submarine patrols (ASP). Each day’s attacks further degraded the anti-aircraft fire. ⁹

But what the Japanese couldn’t do, darkness and foul weather did. On 12 September, four F6F night fighters returned from orbiting the island to prevent the Japanese from launching aircraft. The first three landed safely, but the fourth came in too high and crashed into parked planes, destroying five and damaging eight others. The pilot was not injured.

For the first time, Air Group Thirteen used napalm in its bombing attacks. There was a learning curve as the first four napalm bombs dropped didn’t ignite due to a failure to remove the cotter pins from their arming fuses. Twenty-six others dropped from as low as 100 feet and did ignite on contact.⁹

Peleliu Ground Fighting

Meanwhile, the Marines on the ground found themselves in a hellish situation. Their strategic objective was the airfield, which they seized on the second day. The Japanese resistance stiffened, causing the invasion of nearby Anguar to be postponed. It would take six weeks to dig out the Japanese defenders from their caves and tunnels north of the airstrip. The 1st Marine Division suffered more than 6,000 casualties. The US Army’s 81st Division relieved them, but they also suffered. In the end, the Japanese lost 10,000 soldiers killed. American casualties rose to 8,000 total casualties, with 1500 dead. ¹⁰

These figures were much higher than the casualties the Marines and sailors suffered at Tarawa. There, the Marines lost 1,0009 dead and about 2000 wounded. The Navy lost 646 men when the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay was sunk by a Japanese submarine while providing support.¹¹

By 17 September, the task group needed to refuel, which occupied most of the day. No close air strikes were launched, only a CAP and an ASP. On 18 September, additional strikes were requested, and Big Ben launched 26 aircraft in two strikes that bombed, strafed, and rocketed Japanese positions.¹²

That evening, the task group left for Manus, in the Admiralty Islands, to re-provision, as it was low on rockets and bombs. Another task group replaced it. ^{8 12}

Most historians consider Peleliu to have been an unnecessary operation. (I will write more about the decision-making around the Peleliu invasion in another post.) Indeed, in his book Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, Craig Symonds refers to Nimitz’s decision on Peleliu as “his greatest mistake of the war.” ¹⁰

Franklin would next see combat in October, again serving as the flagship of its task group.

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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

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1. USS Franklin Action Report – Operations against the Enemy at Yap and Palau from 5 September 1944 to 18 September 1944, 1, Fold3.com https://www.fold3.com/image/282757989/rep-of-ops-against-yap-is-carolines-the-palau-is-93-1844-page-1-us-world-war-ii-war-diaries-1941-194?terms=franklin,september,1944,action,report,uss,18,5,to Accessed 15 September 2024
2. George Herbert Walker Bush | National Heritage and History Command https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/biographies-list/bios-b/bush-george-h-w.html
3. USS Franklin CV-13 Original Documents 1943-1946 (Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Co. 1994) 76
4. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States naval operations in World War II, Vol. XII (Edison, N.J.: Castle Books, 2001) 33
5. Symonds, Craig L. Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022 Kindle Edition) 320
6. USS Franklin Action Report 2
7. Lt. Marvin K. Bowman, Big Ben The Flat Top: The Story of the U.S.S. Franklin (Atlanta: Albert Love Enterprises, 1946) 54
8. Bowman, 54
9. Action Report, 2
10. Symonds, 320
11. Tarawa: Breaking Into The Gilberts 19 November 1943 | US Navy History and Heritage Command https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1943/tarawa.html Accessed 16 September 2024
12. Action Report, 4