Allan Christie Edmands I

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On June 25, 1944, Ace was ordered to Fleet Air, West Coast, as skipper of Torpedo Squadron 5 (VT5, the Torpcats), stationed at Alameda and Santa Rosa Naval Air Stations and practicing maneuvers at Monterey (torpedo practice), Arcata (rocket practice), and Modesto (night flying). (To see a picture of the VT5 pilots, all of them officers, click the Torpcats insignia to the right.) VT5 was part of Air Group 5, which also consisted of the VB5 dive bomber squadron and the VF5 fighter squadron.

Meanwhile, his third child, daughter Janna, was born at the U.S. Navy hospital in La Jolla, California, just north of San Diego. Ace was able to join his family in San Diego, at the home they had purchased, for a short time during the autumn. Here is a picture of Ace with his son, two-year-old Butch, on the trike he got for an early Christmas present (click to enlarge). On the last day of November, Mary and Butch traveled to Santa Rosa and stayed with Ace for seven weeks (Christine and baby Janna were being looked after by sister-in-law Janie).

The demands of Ace's work, leading his squadron flying their new TBM Avenger torpedo planes in monotonous anti-submarine practice exercises and ensuring that they would be able to land safely on carriers at night, kept him very busy, though. Mary and Butch had to part from him in San Francisco on January 17, 1945, the last they saw of him.

Ace, according to a letter he sent his mother, "went aboard a carrier with the boys to qualify. . . am back in [Santa Rosa] now for a week or so. Getting ready to go out." Taking a day off at the end of the month, Ace relieved stress by walking several miles and hitchhiking to Guerneyville and Rio Nido in the Redwoods.

On February 7, 1945, the Air Group 5 squadrons embarked from Alameda, California, on the Essex-class carrier U.S.S. Franklin (CV13), part of the Task Force 58 armada assaulting the Japanese home islands--all in preparation for the Battle of Okinawa and then the "final push" on Japan. The Franklin, under the command of Captain Leslie E. Gehres, was the flagship for the task force's subgroup, Task Group 58.2, and the group's commanding officer, Rear Admiral Ralph E. Davison, was on board.

En route, Ace's squadron was stationed for a week at Kaneohe Marine Air Station in Oahu, and there they continued night carrier landing practice. Captain Gehres had been displeased with the poor performance of the air group's takeoffs and landings, and he continued to unleash his notoriously bad temper until the plane crews improved. Here is a picture of Ace on the beach at Kaneohe during a break from the intense practice (click to enlarge it).

During that week, on February 14, Ace was able to send another letter to his mother, in which he told her he would like to learn to play a musical instrument, such as a clarinet. His mother replied on February 28, the day she received his letter, that a co-worker of hers at the Andover Press would sell him a clarinet.

"I never knew you wanted to learn any musical instrument," she wrote, "but couldn't have bought you one anyway I guess when you were growing up. We sure had little enough to live on but you got by and I only wish now that Dad was here to see how well you are doing. . . . I wish Mary and the children were nearer so I could help them out now and then. Also wish I could have a snapshot of the baby. Hope you keep safe and well. Lots of love, Mother." This letter was mailed on March 1 but was returned, unopened and undelivered, the first week of June.

The armada proceeded westward from Hawaii, across the International Date Line, and beyond communication with loved ones. They continued to the Ulithi Atoll staging area in the western Pacific and then almost due northward to a position less than 60 miles east of the Japanese home islands.

On March 18 Ace's torpedo squadron made two successful raids against targets on the island of Kyushu, including the harbor at Kagoshima. Each of the two raids was made by a different half of the squadron, one half led by Ace, the other by his executive officer (second in command), Lieutenant Charles Carr.

Early on the following morning, Monday, March 19 (it was Sunday the 18th in the U.S.), the VT5 pilots met in the ready room to learn the designated targets for the day. Lt. Carr's half of the squadron was scheduled to fly the first raid, scheduled for about 7 am, and Ace's half the second, at noontime. When Ace discovered that the target of the morning raid was to be Kobe Harbor, where the remnants of the Japanese fleet, including the giant battleship Yamato and the carrier Amagi, were reported to be hiding, he bumped Lt. Carr to noon. Ace wanted to get first crack at the ships and subs there.

Before leaving the ready room, the pilots heard a prayer and received a blessing from Father Joseph T. O'Callahan.

At 7 am, Ace and his pilots were warming up their fully gassed and armed torpedo planes on the flight deck, Ace's plane in front of the squadron, their wings having just unfolded, in position for takeoff. The fighters of the combat air patrol, whose mission was to protect the ships from enemy planes, had already launched. Now the 31 planes of Air Group 5--F4U Corsairs fighters each with a 1,100-pound 10-foot-long Tiny Tim rocket capable of splitting an enemy ship in half, SB2C Helldiver and TBF and TBM Avenger bombers each with four 500-pound bombs, and the Avenger torpedo bombers of VT5 in the rear--began to launch. Lieutenant Robert H. Frank, in charge of plane maintenance, was stationed midship behind the flight deck officer, approving (or sometimes disapproving) each plane's launch by the sound of its revving engine.

At 0707, disaster struck: A single Japanese radial-engine "Judy" bomber dropped two 500-pound armor-piercing bombs(2)