Dear friends of the USS Franklin documentary,
We are just a couple days away from the USS Franklin reunion in Corpus Christi, Texas, and once again we will be filming for the documentary In the Shadow of the USS Franklin.
We will have a similar production crew as with previous reunions: one director of photography (DP), two cinematographers, one sound mixer, and our own Clay Rausch, shooting production photos. You can read about Clay, the DP Tim O’Laughlin, and the sound mixer Zach Noblitt, on the “Meet the Team” page.
The reunion should be exciting, as it will coincide with the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the USS Lexington and will also include the incorporation of the USS Franklin memorial plaques into the museum’s “Carrier Row” exhibit.
(From October, 2022: Rusty Reustel of the USS Lexington Museum explains where the newly-delivered USS Franklin memorial plaques will be stored while they await incorporation into the museum collection. Neal Clement, cinematographer, Zach Noblitt, sound mixer.)
Our first day of filming will be at the USS Lexington Museum, where Glenn Ross, the author who is working on a new book about the USS Franklin, will aim to retrace the routes taken by Father Joseph O’Callahan and Lt. Donald Gary from below-decks to the flight deck during the attack of March 19, 1945. Glenn has stressed that it’s not certain that the same routes still exist or will be open, as changes were made to Essex-class carriers based on lessons-learned from the 1945 attack on the Franklin, but he will make the effort and we will capture it for the documentary.
You can learn more about Glenn’s project here: https://mglennross.com/
(The USS Lexington CV-16)
For those of you who will attend the Franklin reunion, I look forward to seeing you there.
Until then or until the next update, take care,
Andy