Missing
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
Meanwhile, Ace's wife (my mother) and his mother (my Grandmother Edmands) could continue to write to him at the following address:
Lt. Comdr. A. C. Edmands, U.S.N.just as though he were residing in a safe and pleasant American city on the West Coast. They were used to him not answering his mail for a while. It might be weeks before he would even get their letters. Waging war as a job necessitated some stretched-out silences. The folks at home went on with their lives: buying groceries, making meals, changing diapers, doing the laundry, going to the movies.
VT 5, c/o Fleet P.O.
San Francisco,
California
Actually, there must have been a lot of anxiety in our home in San Diego. The U.S. was getting ready to invade the Japanese home islands in the "final push," and many American lives were expected to be lost.(1)
The final push on Japan had already begun with the assault on Iwo Jima in mid-February 1945. When in the later stages of World War II the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed the prospect of an invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost of the major Japanese home islands, Admiral William Leahy projected 268,000 Americans would be killed or wounded out of an invasion force of 766,000. The invasion of the chief island of Honshu, tentatively planned for the spring of 1946, would have been significantly worse. From "The Jacksonian Tradition" by Walter Russell Mead, in The National Interest no. 58, Winter 1999/2000.
(Close)
My mother wrote to Grandmother Edmands that, after returning home from the holidays with Ace, she had a lot of fun celebrating a belated Christmas with the children and Aunt Janie, but I have to imagine the stress was palpable.
My grandmother wrote in her diary on March 9: "Got letter from Mary and she let Janey [sic] take Janna with her up to San Francisco. I don't think Mary cares much about the baby, and she isn't well herself." My mother, suffering from pleurisy, was having a nervous breakdown; at that point, I'm sure she didn't want to be a mother to any of us.
On March 23 my grandmother received a letter from her, saying that Ace might be away for an entire year. No doubt this possibility had been inserted in Ace's last letter to her, in February, from Hawaii. The prospect of the bloody invasion of Japan loomed, and it was projected to last at least a year.
On April 12 President Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and all radio programs were canceled except for war news and tributes to the President. The "war news," of course, was censored and vague and not current. There was no news about what had been going on with Ace and the other men on the U.S.S. Franklin.
Then, on April 16, came the very unwelcome telegram from Vice Admiral Randall Jacobs, Chief of Naval Personnel, informing my mother that her husband was missing and that she must not aid the enemy by divulging the name of his ship. My grandmother received a similar telegram. Admiral Jacobs said that the Navy Department appreciated my mother's great anxiety, "BUT DETAILS NOT NOW AVAILABLE AND DELAY IN RECEIPT THEREOF MUST NECESSARILY BE EXPECTED."
Those details have never become readily available. Whatever details we learned had to be dug for.
Apparently, the Franklin had seen some action, but the folks at home had no idea what the extent of that action was. There was a lot of speculation, though: Ace's cousin Minerva Ramsdell Russell assured my grandmother that Ace was "a good flyer and no one saw him go down so he may be OK." Ace's brother, John, suggested darkly that Ace might have gone down over the Japanese mainland.
During the third week of April, my mother received a letter from Ace's executive officer (second in command), Lieutenant Charles Carr, who wrote that "the squadron lost heavily in the situation which resulted in Ace being listed 'missing in action.'" Ace had been on the carrier deck waiting to be launched when an enemy bomb struck the ship. Ace and his crew "were forced to go over the side" to avoid the "subsequent fire. He was not seen after that." Ace's Naval Academy ring was "recovered from his room" and Lt. Carr "found his dog tags later."(2)
My sister Christine helped me understand that Lt. Carr was fibbing, shielding our mother from some gruesome details about the condition of Ace's remains, which must have indeed been discovered: Ace had not been able to get that ring off his finger, and no serviceman is ever without his dog tags, especially in a combat zone, especially when strapped in a plane readying for takeoff on a bombing raid. The fact that Lt. Carr's words can be doubted makes all of the official version of events--including what Captain Gehres, who received his information second or third hand, said in his letter as well as what was in the hastily edited Lucky Bag 20-year reunion book--seem possibly suspect.
To close this footnote, click the number again or click (Close)
Further information on what happened to the Franklin was slow in coming. On April 19, my grandmother wrote: "The news tonight . . . over the radio isn't so good as the Okinawa battle is the worst yet and has cost the Navy more casualties than the Marines or Army. Jap. suicide planes are doing it." On April 21 she wrote: "Radio announcer said that 15 or 16 ships had been sunk in the Okinawa campaign. Just said 5 destroyers and lesser craft." But no more news about the Franklin.
On April 21, Navy Captain W. E. Doyle (father of Aunt Janie, who was living with us in San Diego), residing then in New Orleans, received this a letter from Rear Admiral H. D. Nuber, stating that the Navy Bureau of Personnel had no information on Ace other than "missing" and that any information forthcoming would not be given to anyone "until the nearest relative [my mother] is notified." Captain Doyle then forwarded the letter to Janie, appending it with this handwritten letter, stating that "you and poor little Mary will just have to wait for further news--brutal as that wait will be."
On April 26, the battered Franklin reached Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York Harbor, but many details about what happened to it were still not released. On May 3 my cousin John Allan Weeks was born. On May 8 Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally.
On May 18 a detailed story on the Franklin became public. It was called "the worst naval disaster of the war" with "nearly 1000 men killed, wounded or missing." A thousand men were going to be needed in the repairs. On May 21 the men who brought the ship home received medals.
Cousin Minerva Russell, on June 3, phoned Lt. Carr's mother, who lived nearby. According to the diary entry, "she was very pleasant. Said her son thought the world of Allan. Said Allan was heroic to the last--pushing a bomb off the ship."
My grandmother, learning that the Franklin's skipper, Captain Gehres, was visiting his sister nearby and that he answered letters, wrote to him. She received a reply on June 4. He stated that Ace "somehow, managed to get out of [his] plane and was seen at 0747 on the stern, hangar deck level. That, unfortunately was the last time he was reported as having been seen. For several hours thereafter explosions rent the ship. They were particularly severe in the area where Allan was last observed." Though that part of the ship was thoroughly searched, and though rescuers were able to find many survivors in the sea, Ace was never found, he said.(3)
Eye witness Ed McGuckin, an ordnance gunner in Torpedo Squadron 5, insists that Ace was last seen on the flight deck, not the hangar deck (which would be just below the flight deck).
(Close)
On June 4 my grandmother saw a newsreel of the Franklin disaster. In her diary she wrote: "I don't see how anyone lived on that ship. Didn't stay for other pictures as I felt too bad. Talked with Mrs. Nicoll after we came out. She hasn't heard from her boy either."
On June 6 my grandmother wrote: "10 years ago Allan graduated from Annapolis, and now I suppose he's gone." Letters and cards that she and my mother had sent to Ace began coming back, undelivered, unopened, and unread. June 8: "Another letter back from Navy sent to Allan--that makes 4."
On June 10, Ace's 34th birthday, my grandmother attended baby John Allan's cristening. She wrote in her diary that night: "Had a crying spell this morning as my first little boy was born 34 years ago and probably is dead."
On June 22, just after my sister Christine had finished the first grade, my mother, suffering from "walking pneumonia," gave away our pet cat, El Gato, and rented out our San Diego house. She took Christine and me with her up the coast through to the chicken ranch on Waunch's Prairie, just north of Centralia, Washington, where she had grown up. Her sister, my Aunt Jane, lived there then with her husband and children. From the July 23 diary entry: "Mary is at Centralia and has been sleeping most of the time."
What about baby Janna? Inexplicably, my mother let Aunt Janie (different from Aunt Jane) take baby Janna to New Orleans, and then for an extended stay in Aunt Janie's hometown, Laramie, Wyoming. The two of them were away for months.
August 9 (Grandma's diary): "Looks as if Jap war might end soon. Too bad it didn't end a year ago or never begun, for so many fine boys might have been alive today."
August 14 (Grandma's diary): "Victory over Japan. War ends. Word came over the networks at 7 oclock that Japan had surrendered. Gen MacArthur made supreme commander in Pacific. Lucy and I went downtown and the town went wild but no drunks so far as I could see. Seemed like an oldfashioned 4th of July."
September 1 (Grandma's diary): "Letter from Mary. . . . [She] is going to school there in Centralia with the kids.(4)
Christine wrote the following in 1997: "Instant Poverty: The government provided $35 per month per minor child for support. In addition, there was a stipend for the widow until she remarried. Mother needed to go back to work. And soon. In Centralia she had a family. Her sister would care for Allan [Butch] and me while Mother finished the bookkeeping training that had been interrupted by marriage. And find work." Note: $35 per month would be $375 per month in 2006 dollars--still a pittance.
(Close)
She felt pretty bad on VJ day but still hopes for Allan's return. I wonder if she really does. I don't see how she can. Listened to radio and heard the signing of the surrender of Japan. Adm. Halsey would have liked to have kicked their faces in. Heard President Truman too."
September 28 (Grandma's diary): "Letter from Mary giving me Janna's address with Janie."
October 10 (Grandma's diary): "Two years ago I was starting out for California thinking I was going to live there. I wonder if it would have made any difference about Allan if I had stayed."
On October 12, the other shoe finally dropped: the follow-up telegram, this one from Vice Admiral Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Personnel. My mother received it when she got home from school.
With deep regrets and sincerest sympathy, Admiral Denfeld wrote: "A CAREFUL REVIEW OF ALL FACTS AVAILABLE RELATING TO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF YOUR HUSBAND LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ALLAN CHRISTIE EDMANDS USN PREVIOUSLY REPORTED MISSING LEADS TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THERE IS NO HOPE FOR HIS SURVIVAL AND THAT HE LOST HIS LIFE AS RESULT OF ENEMY ACTION ON 19 MARCH 1945 WHILE IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY." He promised that if further details were received, they would be forwarded promptly. My mother never had access to "ALL FACTS AVAILABLE," so if she didn't accept the Admiral's conclusion, she could imagine all kinds of things.
Grandmother Edmands, who received a similar telegram, did accept this conclusion. After remarking in her diary on October 13, "I guess I haven't cried any more for years than I have this past 6 months," she reported that she got her son's death notice ready for the local papers. She also arranged the memorial service for him on November 18 at Andover Christ Episcopal Church, attended by all of Ace's New England kin.
My mother, though, fell apart with the second telegram. Aunt Jane asked my Grandma Hawes (my mother's mother) to come out to the ranch to stay with her. My Grandpa Hawes continued to insist that Ace would be found, and, in some part of her mind, my mother kept that hope alive as well.
Back to the beginning of this page
Back to the beginning of "What happened to Ace on that day?"
Go to the biography of Allan C. Edmands I
Go to the vital statistics and sources on Allan C. Edmands I