February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
O’Callahan rallied groups of sailors to form firefighting brigades, ministered to the wounded and dying, and led several critical efforts to prevent live ammunition from exploding. His leadership that day helped save the Franklin and hundreds of lives and earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Joseph Timothy O’Callahan was born on May 14, 1905 in Roxbury, Mass. He joined the Jesuits after graduating high school and studied theology, mathematics, and physics. In 1938, he joined the faculty at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., where he taught math and physics. In 1940, as war raged across Europe and the U.S. remained neutral, O’Callahan joined the Navy, receiving a commission as a lieutenant in the Navy Chaplain Corps.
Fr. O’Callahan spent most of the war aboard the USS Ranger in the Atlantic. But on March 2, 1945, as the war against Japan reached its final phase, he was assigned to the USS Franklin, an aircraft carrier based in Pearl Harbor. The Franklin, known affectionately as “Big Ben” to its men, soon steamed toward Japan as part of a huge armada named Task Force 58. The group was some 50 miles off Kobe, Japan, when disaster struck the Franklin. At 7:07 a.m. on March 19, while O’Callahan was still eating his breakfast, a lone Japanese bomber burst out of the clouds and made straight for the Franklin. The pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb on his first pass and scored a direct hit in the center of the flight deck. The blast penetrated three decks below.
Seconds later, he dropped another 500-pound bomb into the ship’s aft section. Like the first, it ripped a hole several decks deep. The initial explosions caused massive damage and crippled the carrier’s engines. Fire spread in every direction, killing hundreds of sailors below decks. Soon the
Franklin’s own ordinance began detonating, threatening to destroy the vessel.
Many heroes emerged that day. Lt. Donald Gray, for example, crawled through a smoky airshaft to led 300 trapped sailors to safety. But it was O’Callahan who seemed to be everywhere. Possessed of extraordinary physical courage and a cool demeanor that calmed the terror in those around him, O’Callahan quickly organized firefighting crews to control the flames. Looking about him at one point, he saw flames closing in on two big gun turrets he knew were packed with enough ordinance to send the Franklin to the bottom. Leading the way, he pushed his way into the scorching turret at began handing 5-inch shells to a line of men who proceeded to throw them overboard. Captain Les Gehres recalled looking down from the bridge to see a 500-pound bomb rolling slowly toward a fiery hole in the deck above a massive ordinance magazine. If it fell into the hole the Franklin and all aboard would be lost. He watched helplessly as a few men stopped the bomb and tried unsuccessfully to defuse it. Then suddenly out of nowhere appeared O’Callahan. He stood calmly over the bomb and by his demeanor allowed the men to gather their wits and complete the defusing. Gehres later told O’Callahan’s mother, “Your son is the bravest man I have ever seen.”
In between such incredible acts of courage and leadership, O’Callahan helped the wounded and administered last rites to hundreds of the dead. The latter scene was captured in a famous photograph. Badly burned and riddled with shrapnel, he worked ceaselessly for three days without sleep to bring the ship under control.
The Franklin did not founder. She was towed back to Pearl Harbor listing 13 degrees to starboard. Her crew was devastated, with 724 killed and 265 injured. After a quick patch up, the carrier steamed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for major repairs. It was still there four months later when the war ended.
On Jan. 23, 1946, Fr. Joseph T. O’Callahan, S.J., became the first Navy chaplain to receive the Medal of Honor. Assigned to the new carrier USS Franklin Roosevelt, he served in the Navy for another 10
months before receiving his discharge. He rejoined the faculty at Holy Cross and resumed the teaching he so loved. But the hero priest never fully recovered from his ordeal and suffered a debilitating stroke in 1949. Nonetheless, O’Callahan continued to mentor and tutor students at the college for many years. In 1956, he published a best-selling memoir, “I Was Chaplain on the Franklin,” which served as the basis for the movie “Battle Stations” released the same year. O’Callahan died in 1964 at the age of 59. One year later, the Navy christened a new destroyer escort the USS O’Callahan in his honor.
Postscript: Jay O’Callahan, Fr. Joe’s nephew, is an acclaimed professional storyteller. Among his most popular stories is his brilliant account of Fr. Joe and the Franklin. For more information
visit www.ocallahan.com.
HIBERNIAN HISTORY WEEK
March 17, 1737: the Boston Charitable Irish Society holds the first recorded celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in America.
March 17, 1961: Chicago dyes its canal green for the first time in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
HIBERNIAN BIRTHDATES
March 16, 1828: Confederate Gen. Patrick Cleburne is born in Ovens Township, Co. Cork.
March 16, 1927: Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is born in Tulsa, Okla.
March 20, 1945: NBA player and coach Pat Riley is born in Rome, N.Y.