AFTER ACTION BLOG

Two carriers burning after separate kamikaze strikes. USS Franklin (CV-13), at right, and USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) afire after being hit by Japanese kamikaze suicide planes, while operating off the Philippines on 30 October 1944. Photographed from USS Brush (DD-745). US Navy 80-G-326798

Kamikazes “Body Crash” USS Franklin and USS Belleau Wood

October 30, 2025
Pilots of Torpedo Squadron 13 (VT-13) in their ready room aboard USS Franklin...
Action Reports / Kamikaze attack / October 1944
A group of US Navy officers including women who are WAVES attend the commissioning of the USS Franklin, 14 October 1943. The picture shows a vew of the ship's bow, wrapped in bunting taken from a lower angle so the bow looms overhead.

Websites Essential to Researching U.S. Navy Ships and Crews

October 14, 2025
The USS Franklin (CV-13) is floated out of her building dock immediately after...
US Navy / USS Franklin
The Japanese battleship Musashi down at the bow after being hit by U.S. Navy carrier plane attacks in the Sibuyan Sea. Courtesy of Lieutenant Tobei Shiraishi. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 63434

Accurate Information Is The Lifeblood of Effective Decision-making

October 10, 2025
My current reading. Each chapter is written by a different historian. I highly...
Communication / Decision-Making / Leadership
USS Franklin Listing to one side after being attacked on March 19, 1945 as seen from USS Santa Fe

Stories From The USS Franklin: Caught Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

September 23, 2025
USS Franklin nearly obscured by smoke and flames after 19 March attack US...
Gunner's Mate 3/c Stanley Olander / Oral Histories / Torpedoman1/c Alfred Amos / US Navy
Title Slide of the documentary, Navy Medicine At War. It shows a somewhat blurry image of an American POW in the presence of what appears to be two Japanese officials.

Documentary: Navy Medicine at War: Final Victory

September 15, 2025
This is the sixth and last in a series of blog posts about...
Books, Movies, Videos, and other media / Medical Personnel / Oral Histories / US Navy
Ensign Jane Kendeigh, the first Navy flight nurse to reach Iwo Jima ministers to a wounded marine on 6 March 1945. She is bent over him as he lays on a stretcher, his head wrapped in bandages.

Documentary: Navy Medicine at War: Stepping Stones To Tokyo

August 26, 2025
U.S. Navy doctors and corpsmen tend to wounded Marines at a first aid...
Medical Personnel / Oral Histories / US Navy
A pen and ink drawing of a sickbay on an unknown US Navy ship. There are four bunks, two on top of two. Sailors are shown lounging in the bunks and talking to each other.

Battle Station Sick Bay

August 20, 2025
88-159-GM Charcoal drawing of a hospital corpsman is taking the temperature of a...
Medical Personnel / Oral Histories
This is the famous picture of US Army troops storming the Normandy coastline. The photographer is standing in a landing craft taking a picture of the men as they wade through the surf in front of him.

Navy Medicine At Normandy D-Day

August 11, 2025
This is the famous picture of US soldiers wading ashore at Normandy on...
D-Day / Medical Personnel / Oral Histories / US Navy
USS Franklin (CV-13) Church service on the ship's ruined hangar deck 80-G-K-5056

Model Showing USS Franklin Battle Damage

August 2, 2025
In March of 2025, I attended the reunion of USS Franklin crew and...
19 march / USS Franklin Ship Model
Taken just before the Bataan Death March starts, more than 100 US soldiers are shown sitting down while being guarded by several Japanese soldiers carrying rifles with bayonets. A Japanese photographer is shown on the right adding film to his camera.

Bataan Death March and POW Oral Histories

July 28, 2025
Even though I was only four years old, I remember watching him blink....
Medical Personnel / Oral Histories / US Navy

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