Tom Leo

Tom Leo, 2nd Gunnery Division, U.S.S. Franklin (CV-13), U.S. Navy

Tom served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-1946

Can you start us at the beginning of your military experience?

When I was in high school there was a program called “Win Your Wings of Navy Gold", with the option to win a $10,000 college education. I signed up for that and went to a college fifteen miles away and the day I reported they put us into uniforms. It was a cadet school where you received your training to become a pilot and was one of eighty colleges around the States and was in the middle of 1944. They then stopped the program in half the schools, so we went to Great Lakes Naval Training Station.

One of the fellows who washed out of Notre Dame was Jackie Cooper and he was in my Boot Company and was our drummer. I also got to meet a fellow named Levy whose father was a movie director. Cooper was assigned to Claude Thornhill’s band. I went out to Stockton, CA and was assigned into the general pool and was selected for the USS Franklin. It was a 17 story, 27,000 ton carrier. We were shipped to Bremerton, WA on Puget Sound.

We left there very close to Christmas 1944 on a short run to Alameda, CA to pick up a tremendous amount of planes, including some Army bombers. We sailed to Hawaii and then went out on a rundown cruise which consisted of our torpedo and fighter planes coming at us and our dive bombers diving at us, all shooting blank ammunition. We then joined the Fifth Fleet which consisted of four elements. Each element contained three to four carriers, two to three battleships and cruisers, and about thirty or so destroyers.

On March 19, 1945, we were attacked. I lost a lot of buddies, sixteen out of my gun squad. There were seven hundred and four of us who brought her back. We were called the 704 Club and were written up in the Collier Magazine. We had a card made up stating it was founded in March 1945 off the shore of Kyushu. Kyushu is the southernmost island of Japan where all of the Kamikazes were located.

For all of us who don’t know, can you tell us about what happened to the Franklin?

We were bombing the Kamikaze fields on Kyushu on the morning of March 19th, 1945. One of the Japanese bombers dropped down out of the overcast sky. They knew we were there. When he dropped down, he was almost on top of us and let loose two five hundred pound armor piercing bombs. One hit the aft flight deck and tore out one of the elevators. The other came in at an angle into the hanger deck and blew up all of our planes that were loaded with ammunition and gasoline. Everything was an inferno in about ten to twenty minutes.

When it hit, I was in my lower bunk. We had been on Condition Three, which was the highest alert, but they let one third of the crew go down for chow. I decided the chow line would be too long, so I rolled into my bunk. When the bomb hit, I rolled out of my bunk and started up the ladder to my gun but the flames were coming down the ladder. So I went down below to another deck where the hospital was located. Me and some other guys crawled on our hands and knees diagonally to the other side of the ship until we couldn’t go any further. The flames were behind us. About twenty of us were trapped and stayed there for about three hours. It got very hot and the fire was going down into our lungs. We were all praying. The firefighters heard us banging on the hatch and opened it up. We went out onto the bow of the ship. The anchor was cut off and the line was tied to a cruiser, the USS Pittsburgh, which towed us out of there.

I went back up to the hanger deck and three of us put a 20mm anti-aircraft gun into operation and we stayed there for two days. There were officers checking on us but there was very little communication. We hadn’t had anything to eat and after the second day, I went to my bunk to get a tin of peanut brittle and a bottle of pineapple juice. My locker was half full of water, so the only things I got out of there were rosary beads, the tin of peanut brittle and the pineapple juice.

What is the timeframe you are talking about now?

From the time that we got hit at 7:03am, I was trapped until after 10am. The cruiser, Santa Fe, came along our starboard side and took away all of our wounded and some of the killed. We were the flagship for our division, so Admiral Davidson and his group went also. There was no mention of abandoning ship. When they pulled away, there were 704 of us left.

We went to Hawaii and had our sponsons cut off so we could pass through the Panama Canal. We went up between Cuba and Key West and then up the coast. German U-boats followed us all the way up the coast. A Mexican oil tanker was torpedoed right behind us. A huge bomber would give us our code for the day, would tip its wings and take off. It would follow us all the way up the coast. We couldn’t see it or the other bombers following us but we knew they were there.

We arrived in New York City and April 28, 1945 at Bay Head Long Island where we unloaded our ammunition and then went into berth at Brooklyn Navy Yard.

And then where did you go?

The bar- ha ha! I was going on nineteen years old at the time. We were treated very well. They were not announcing everything that happened, but as we sailed into New York, everyone could see all of the destruction. The red, white, and blue tugs showered us and Mayor LaGuardia met our ship. We had all kinds of offers to go to different shows. We went to the Stage Door Canteen and the USO. I remember one night I was walking near Broadway in the rain. I went by the Winter Garden Theater. There was a burlesque comedy team there called Olsen and Johnson. I was by myself, but I went to the stage door to see if I could get in. A woman named Margo came and took me to see Olsen and Johnson who were getting ready to put on their show. They said to hang up my coat and hat and Margo will take you to a seat to enjoy the show. I still have a picture from the show signed “To Tommy”.

How much longer were you in the Navy?

One more year. I was on the ship until June 1946. There weren’t many of us left aboard. We didn’t need the guns in New York, so I was transferred to the Navy Navigation, which meant I served quarterdeck duty with a 45 and checked people as they came on and off the ship. At that time I was looking for something to do, so I went to the Executives office and said I would like to take a course in art. The Commander asked if I would draw and said to draw him something and bring it back the next day. He said Lt. Bowman who was putting a book together and maybe I could help him. So I made up a character called Little Ben. The two of us went to Washington to pick up photographs of the ship from the Navy. We then went to Atlanta, GA and worked with one of the writers from the Atlanta Constitution. I created the front cover and developed the little character which appears throughout the book.

Do you remember where you were when you heard about Pearl Harbor?

I was in a suburb of Pittsburgh and had gone to the movies. I was 15 years old. I walked out of the movies and someone said Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Nobody knew where Pearl Harbor was. I went back home and we listened to the radio all night long. Everything started to change at that time. I started a scrapbook with all the war headlines from the Youngstown Vindicator.