Adapted from: "Flight Surgeon on the Spot: Aboard USS Franklin, 19 March 1945," Navy Medicine 84, no. 4 (July-August 1993): 4-9.
I joined the Navy the day after Pearl
Harbor. Actually, I had been turned down twice before because
I had never been in a ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps - located
at many colleges to train students for officer commissions] reserve
unit. Since I had to work my way through college and medical school,
I wasn't able to go to summer camp or the monthly week end drills.
Instead, I needed to work in order to earn the money to pay my
tuition. Therefore, I could never join a ROTC unit.
When most of my classmates were called up prior to Pearl Harbor,
I felt quite guilty, and I went to see if I could get into the
Army unit. They flunked me. Then I went to the Navy recruiting
office and they flunked me for two minor reasons. One was because
I had my nose broken a half dozen times while I was boxing. The
inside of my nose was so obstructed and the septum was so crooked
that the Navy didn't think I could breathe well enough. I also
had a partial denture because I had lost some front teeth also
while boxing.
But the day after Pearl Harbor, I went back to the Navy and they
welcomed me with open arms. They told me I had 10 days to close
my office and get commissioned. At that time, I went to Treasure
Island, CA [naval station in San Francisco Bay], for indoctrination.
After that, I was sent to Alameda Naval Air Station [east of San
Francisco, near Oakland CA] where I was put in charge of surgery
and clinical services. One day the Team Medical Officer burst
into the operating room and said, "When are you going to
get through with this operation?" I answered, "In about
a half hour." He said, "Well, you better hurry up because
I just got orders for you to go to Pensacola to get flight surgeon's
training."
Nothing could have been better because airplanes were the love
of my life. In fact, both my wife and I were private pilots and
I had my own little airfield and two planes. Since I wasn't allowed
to be near the planes at Alameda, I had been after the senior
medical officer day and night to get me transferred to flight
surgeon's training.
I went to [Naval Air Station] Pensacola [Florida] in April 1943
for my flight surgeon training and finished up in August. Initially,
I was told that I was going to be shipped out from the East Coast.
But the Navy changed its mind and sent me back to the West Coast
in late 1943 to wait for Air Group 5 at Alameda Naval Air Station.
Air Group 5
Air Group 5 soon arrived, but it took about a year or so of training
to get up to snuff. Most of the people in it were veterans from
other carriers that went down. Three squadrons formed the nucleus
of this air group--a fighter, a bomber, and a torpedo bomber squadron.
Later, we were given two Marine squadrons; the remnants of Pappy
Boyington's group.
Since the Marine pilots had been land-based, the toughest part
of the training was to get them carrier certified. We used the
old [USS] Ranger (CV-4) for take-off and landing training.
We took the Ranger up and down the coast from San Francisco
to San Diego and tried like hell to get these Marines to learn
how to make a landing. They had no problem taking off, but they
had problems with landings. Luckily, we were close enough to airports
so that if they couldn't get on the ship they'd have a place to
land. That way, they wouldn't have to go in the drink. Anyhow,
we eventually got them all certified. Some of our other pilots
trained at Fallon Air Station in Nevada and other West Coast bases.
By the time the [USS] Franklin [CV-13] came in,
we had a very well-trained group of people.
I had two Marine squadrons and three Navy squadrons to take care
of. The Marines claimed I was a Marine. The Navy guys claimed
I was a Navy man. I used to wear two uniforms. When I would go
to the Marine ready rooms [a ready room is a room where air crew
squadrons were briefed on upcoming missions and then stood by
"ready" to go to their aircraft. Each squadron had a
ready room.], I'd put on a Marine uniform and then I'd change
quickly and put on my Navy uniform and go to the other one. We
had a lot of fun with that. As their physician, I was everything.
I had to be a general practitioner with them, but I also was their
father, their mother, their spiritual guide, their social director,
their psychiatrist, the whole thing. Of course, I was well trained
in surgery so I could take care of the various surgical problems.
Every once in a while I had to do an appendectomy. I also removed
some pilonidal cysts and fixed a few strangulated hernias. Of
course, they occasionally got fractures during their training
exercises. I took care of everything for them and they considered
me their personal physician, every one of them. I was called Dr.
Sam and Dr. Sam was their private doctor. No matter what
was wrong, I took care of it.
Eventually, the Franklin arrived in early 1945. It had
been in Bremerton [Washington] being repaired after it was damaged
by a Kamikaze off Leyte [in the Philippine Islands] in October
1944. In mid-February 1945 we left the West Coast and went to
[Naval Base] Pearl [Harbor, Hawaii] first and then to Ulithi [in
the Caroline Islands, west Pacific Ocean. It was captured by the
US in Sept. 1944 and developed into a major advance fleet base.].
By the first week in March, the fleet was ready to sail. It took
us about 5 or 6 days to reach the coast of Japan where we began
launching aerial attacks on the airbases, ports, and other such
targets.
The Attack
Just before dawn on 19 March, 38 of our bombers took off, escorted
by about 9 of our fighter planes. The crew of the Franklin
was getting ready for another strike, so more planes were
on the flight deck. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a Japanese
plane slipped through the fighter screen and popped up just in
front of the ship. My battle station was right in the middle of
the flight deck because I was the flight surgeon and was supposed
to take care of anything that might happen during flight operations.
I saw the Japanese plane coming in, but there was nothing I could
do but stay there and take it. The plane just flew right in and
dropped two bombs on our flight deck.
I was blown about 15 feet into the air and tossed against the
steel bulkhead of the island. I got up groggily and saw an enormous
fire. All those planes that were lined up to take off were fully
armed and fueled. The dive bombers were equipped with this new
"Tiny Tim" heavy rocket and they immediately began to
explode. Some of the rockets' motors ignited and took off across
the flight deck on their own. A lot of us were just ducking those
things. It was pandemonium and chaos for hours and hours. We had
126 separate explosions on that ship; and each explosion would
pick the ship up and rock it and then turn it around a little
bit. Of course, the ship suffered horrendous casualties from the
first moment. I lost my glasses and my shoes. I was wearing a
kind of moccasin shoes. I didn't have time that morning to put
on my flight deck shoes and they just went right off immediately.
Regardless, there were hundreds and hundreds of crewmen who needed
my attention.
Medical Equipment
Fortunately, I was well prepared from a medical equipment standpoint.
From the time we left San Francisco and then stopped at Pearl
and then to Ulithi and so forth, I had done what we call disaster
planning. Because I had worked in emergency hospital service and
trauma centers, I knew what was needed. Therefore, I had a number
of big metal containers, approximately the size of garbage cans,
bolted down on the flight deck and the hangar deck. These were
full of everything that I needed--splints, burn dressings, sterile
dressings of all sorts, sterile surgical instruments, medications,
plasma, and intravenous solutions other than plasma. The most
important supplies were those used for the treatment of burns
and fractures, lacerations, and bleeding. In those days the Navy
had a special burn dressing which was very effective. It was a
gauze impregnated with Vaseline and some chemicals that were almost
like local anesthetics. In addition to treating burns, I also
had to deal with numerous casualties suffering from severe bleeding;
I even performed some amputations.
Furthermore, I had a specially equipped coat that was similar
to those used by duck hunters, with all the little pouches. In
addition to the coat, I had a couple of extra-sized money belts
which could hold things. In these I carried my morphine syrettes
and other small medical items. Due to careful planning I had no
problem whatsoever with supplies.
I immediately looked around to see if I had any corpsmen [Hospital
Corpsman is an enlisted rating for medical orderlies] left. Most
of them were already wounded, dead, or had been blown overboard.
Some, I was later told, got panicky and jumped overboard. Therefore,
I couldn't find any corpsmen, but fortunately I found some of
the members of the musical band whom I had trained in first aid.
I had also given first-aid training to my air group pilots and
some of the crew. The first guy I latched onto was LCDR MacGregor
Kilpatrick, the skipper of the fighter squadron. He was an Annapolis
graduate and a veteran of the[USS] Lexington (CV-2) and
the [USS] Yorktown (CV-5) with three Navy Crosses. He stayed
with me, helping me take care of the wounded.
I couldn't find any doctors. There were three ship's doctors assigned
to the Franklin, CDR Francis (Kurt) Smith, LCDR James Fuelling,
and LCDR George Fox. I found out later that LCDR Fox was killed
in the sick bay by the fires and suffocating smoke. CDR Smith
and LCDR Fuelling were trapped below in the warrant officer's
wardroom, and it took 12 or 13 hours to get them out. That's where
LT Donald Gary got his Medal of Honor for finding an escape route
for them and 300 men trapped below. Mean while, I had very little
medical help.
Finally, a couple of corpsmen who were down below in the hangar
deck came up once they recovered from their concussions and shock.
Little by little a few of them came up. Originally, the band was
my medical help and what pilots I had around.
Evacuation Efforts
I had hundreds and hundreds of patients, obviously more than I
could possibly treat. Therefore, the most important thing for
me to do was triage. In other words, separate the serious wounded
from the not so serious wounded. We'd arranged for evacuation
of the serious ones to the cruiser [USS] Santa Fe (CL-60)
which had a very well-equipped sick bay and was standing by alongside.
LCDR Kilpatrick was instrumental in the evacuations. He helped
me organize all of this and we got people to carry the really
badly wounded. Some of them had their hips blown off and arms
blown off and other sorts of tremendous damage. All together,
I think we evacuated some 800 people to the Santa Fe. Most
of them were wounded and the rest were the air group personnel
who were on board.
The orders came that all air group personnel had to go on the
Santa Fe because they were considered nonexpendable. They
had to live to fight again in their airplanes. The ship's company
air officer of the Franklin came up to LCDR Kilpatrick
and myself as we were supervising the evacuation between fighting
fires, taking care of the wounded, and so forth.
He said, "You two people get your asses over to the Santa
Fe as fast as you can." LCDR Kilpatrick, being an [US
Naval Academy at] Annapolis [Maryland] graduate, knew he had to
obey the order, but he argued and argued and argued. But this
guy wouldn't take his arguments.
He said, "Get over there. You know better." Then he
said to me, "You get over there too."
I said, "Who's going to take care of these people?"
He replied, "We'll manage."
I said, "Nope. All my life I've been trained never to abandon
a sick or wounded person. I can't find any doctors and I don't
know where they are and I only have a few corpsmen and I can't
leave these people."
He said, "You better go because a military order is a military
order."
I said, "Well what could happen to me if I don't go?"
He answered, "I could shoot you or I could bring court-martial
charges against you."
I said, "Well, take your choice." And I went back to
work.
As MacGregor Kilpatrick left he told me, "Sam, you're crazy!"
Getting Franklin Under Way
After the Air Group evacuated, I looked at the ship, I looked
at the fires, and I felt the explosions. I thought, well, I better
say good-bye right now to my family because I never believed that
the ship was going to survive. We were just 50 miles off the coast
of Japan (about 15 minutes flying time) and dead in the water.
The cruiser [USS] Pittsburgh (CA-72) was trying to get
a tow line to us, but it was a difficult job and took hours to
accomplish.
Meanwhile, our engineering officers were trying to get the boilers
lit off in the engine room. The smoke was so bad that we had to
get the Santa Fe to give us a whole batch of gas masks.
But the masks didn't cover the engineers' eyes. Their eyes became
so inflamed from the smoke that they couldn't see to do their
work. So, the XO [Executive Officer, the ship's second-in-command]
came down and said to me, "Do you know where there are any
anesthetic eye drops to put in their eyes so they can tolerate
the smoke?"
I said, "Yes, I know where they are." I knew there was
a whole stash of them down in the sick bay because I used to have
to take foreign bodies out of the eyes of my pilots and some of
the crew.
He asked, "Could you go down there (that's about four or
five decks below), get it and give it to the engineering officer?"
I replied, "Sure, give me a flash light and a guide because
I may not be able to see my way down there although I used to
go down three or four times a day."
I went down and got a whole batch of them. They were in eyedropper
bottles and we gave them to these guys. They put them in their
eyes and immediately they could tolerate the smoke. That enabled
them to get the boilers going.
Aftermath
It was almost 12 or 13 hours before the doctors who were trapped
below were rescued. By that time, I had the majority of the wounded
taken care of. However, there still were trapped and injured people
in various parts of the ship, like the hangar deck, that hadn't
been discovered. We spent the next 7 days trying to find them
all.
I also helped the chaplains take care of the dead. The burial
of the dead was terrible. They were all over the ship. The ships'
medical officers put the burial functions on my shoulders. I had
to declare them dead, take off their identification, remove, along
with the chaplains' help, whatever possessions that hadn't been
destroyed on them, and then slide them overboard because we had
no way of keeping them. A lot of them were my own Air Group people,
pilots and aircrew, and I recognized them even tough the bodies
were busted up and charred. I think we buried about 832 people
in the next 7 days. That was terrible, really terrible to bury
that many people.
Going Home
It took us 6 days to reach Ulithi. Actually, by the time we got
to Ulithi, we were making 14 knots and had cast off the tow line
from the Pittsburgh. We had five destroyers assigned to
us that kept circling us all the time from the time we left the
coast of Japan until we got to Ulithi because we were under constant
attack by Japanese bombers. We also had support from two of the
new battlecruisers.
At Ulithi, I got word that a lot of my people in the Air Group
who were taken off or picked up in the water, were on a hospital
ship that was also in Ulithi. I visited them there and was told
that many of the dead in the Air Group were killed in their ready
rooms, waiting to take off when the bombs exploded. The Marine
squadrons were particularly hard hit, having few survivors. I
have a list of dead Marines which makes your heart sink.
The survivors of the Air Group then regrouped on Guam. They requested
that I be sent back to them. I also wanted to go with them, so
I pleaded my case with the chaplain, the XO, and the skipper [ship's
commanding officer]. Although the skipper felt I had earned the
right to be part of the ship's company, he was willing to send
me where I wanted to go. Luckily, I rejoined my Air Group just
in time to keep the poor derelicts from getting assigned to another
carrier.
The Air Group Commander wanted to make captain so bad, that he
volunteered these boys for another carrier. Most of them were
veterans of the [USS] Yorktown and [USS] Lexington and
had seen quite a lot of action. A fair number of them had been
blown into the water and many were suffering from the shock of
the devastating ordeal. The skipper of the bombing squadron did
not think his men were psychologically or physically qualified
to go back into combat at that particular time. A hearing was
held to determine their combat availability and a flight surgeon
was needed to check them over. I assembled the pilots and checked
them out and I agreed with the bombing squadron skipper. These
men were just not ready to fight yet. Some of them even looked
like death warmed over.
The hearing was conducted by [Fleet] ADM [Chester W.] Nimitz [Commander-in-Chief,
Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas]. He remembered me from
Alameda because I pulled him out of the wreckage of his plane
when it crashed during a landing approach in 1942. He simply said,
"Unless I hear a medical opinion to the contrary to CDR Sherman's,
I have to agree with CDR Sherman." He decided that the Air
Group should be sent back to the States and rehabilitated as much
as possible.
In late April 1945, the Air Group went to Pearl where we briefly
reunited with the Franklin. They had to make repairs to
the ship so it could make the journey to Brooklyn. After a short
stay, we continued on to the Alameda. Then the Navy decided to
break up the Air Group, so everyone was sent on their individual
way. I was given what I wanted--senior medical officer of a carrier--the
[USS] Rendova (CVE-114), which was still outfitting in
Portland, OR. But the war ended shortly after we had completed
outfitting.
I stayed in the Navy until about Christmas time [1945]. I was
mustered out in San Francisco at the same place I was commissioned.
As far as the Air Group Officer, who said he would either shoot
me or court-martial me, well, he didn't shoot me. He talked about
the court-martial a lot but everybody in higher rank on the ship
thought it was a really bad idea and made him sound like a damned
fool. He stopped making the threats.
5
June 2000