In the late fall of last year, I started a side-project that stemmed from the research I have conducted for the documentary. Those of you who attended the Franklin reunion in March may remember hearing me talk about it.
After years of research that has resulted in over 7000 pages of archived documents pertaining to the USS Franklin (CV-13) and Task Group 58.2, I came to the realization that the literature describing what happened to the ship on March 19, 1945 had a relatively focused view, covering almost exclusively the Franklin and seven rescue ships from the action of March 19, 1945. What I had learned from the documents was that the story was much larger than that.
For example, there were more than the two cruisers and five destroyers that we’ve come to know that were involved in the support of the Franklin in March of 1945. Also, the entire plan and organization of the Task Force in attacking the Japanese mainland was revised in order for the fleet to support the Franklin.
What surprised me was the level of resources directed toward the Franklin after she was hit, and how high up in Navy command those decisions were being made. I had always assumed that the rescue of the Franklin was focused within Task Group 58.2 under decision-making by Vice Admiral Ralph Davison, but it went beyond that. (My incorrect assumption came from my inexperience with Navy protocols and history.)
When I took a step back to a broader view of the Franklin within the context of the task force as a whole, it put the story of the Franklin in a new light for me and made me see the decisions by Franklin’s CO Leslie Gehres differently than I had before. In fact, what I learned from the research significantly challenged my long-standing opinions about Gehres’ decisions.
In addition, my research had also uncovered documents which had never before been disclosed in the historical Franklin literature and which filled some gaps that existed in the story, at least for me.
I felt that it was important to get this information to the public sooner than I could do with the film, which won’t be finished until next year at the earliest. I also would not be able to include all of the information from the documents in the film, so writing up the information would be the best way to disseminate it.
I decided to write two documents. First, to be published on the documentary website, was a detailed description of the actions of the Franklin, the task group and the fleet stemming from the March 19,1945 attack. Second was a paper for submission to Naval History, a magazine that is published both in print and online by the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI). My hope was to get everything published by or on March 19 of this year, the 80th anniversary of the attack on the ship in March of 1945.
I was able to publish on the project website a detailed timeline of the actions that occurred on and after March 19, 1945 that were related to the bombing of the Franklin, which you can see by clicking this image on the Home page of this website:
As for the paper, the length required that I split it into two parts. I actually needed to remove about a third of each part due to the magazine’s word count restrictions. For this paper, I had invaluable input from two people. Captain Gary Schnurrpusch (Ret.), honorary Franklin shipmate, read both parts of the manuscript multiple times and made revisions to provide accurate US Navy vernacular and processes to the information.
As for the paper, the length required that I split it into two parts. I actually needed to remove about a third of each part due to the magazine’s word count restrictions. For this paper, I had invaluable input from two people. Captain Gary Schnurrpusch (Ret.), honorary Franklin shipmate, read both parts of the manuscript multiple times and made revisions to provide accurate US Navy vernacular and processes to the information
Then, just before submission, Allan “Ace” Edmands, Jr, son of the Franklin’s skipper of torpedo squadron VT-5, gave each part an editorial review so that the manuscripts adhered to the style requirements by the publisher and were free of inconsistencies. (You can read about our interview with Allan in Update #19 on the documentary website and his editorial expertise here.)
The two-part series was published online in Naval History in early April, so a little later than I had hoped, but I was grateful that the editors seemed to like the manuscripts. They made very few revisions prior to publishing and did their best to get as close as they could to the March 2025 anniversary.
Click here to go to Part 1 and here to go to Part 2 of the series on the USNI website. Non-members can view five articles per month for free.
I have received feedback on the publications in Naval History, and as some people in Franklin families took issue with my conclusions whereas others were glad to learn the “new” information. Also, a few historians have weighed in, and although my research and the data presented were given the “thumbs up,” not all of them agreed with my conclusions. I’m happy with that, because to me, the important thing was getting the information out into the Franklin literature. Readers at least will be more informed about the Franklin story when they draw their own conclusions.
Another update is about the music for the documentary. Trey Hamilton, the most recent addition to the project team, has been working this year to secure rights for the music I have chosen for the film. (Read about Trey here.)
Securing music rights for films is, in my opinion, a confusing and frustrating process. If you’re using a recording, you have to get rights from the authors of the music and from the publisher. That means that for seven songs, you actually need at least 14 licenses, more if there are multiple authors or publishers. Tracking down who exactly owns those rights is not easy – at least for me. People and businesses buy and sell these rights frequently. That’s why I hired Trey – he has worked in the music and recording industry and has connections for getting music clearances.
Of the seven songs on the list, “both sides” of four have been approved by the publishers and artists and one has been rejected, so we can’t use it. Of the two remaining, we’re just waiting to hear back about one, and the last one, we might never be able to license.
The final song on the list is Big Ben the Flat Top, written by Saxie Dowell, bandleader of the Franklin band The Flattoppers. My dream for this song is to create a new band made up of musicians who are descendants of the original Flattoppers band and record them playing Big Ben the Flat Top.
I was collaborating with a WWII military big band historian and two sons of Franklin band members to try to track down information about the song and revive it. They’ve been successful in finding different parts of the sheet music and some documentation about the song.
I have used genealogical methods to find families of a few of the original band members. There are some musicians sprinkled throughout the families, there is one music recording producer, a couple singers, and then the majority which are not involved in music.
However, we ran into a big problem and I put a pause on this work because we might not be able to secure the rights to the song Big Ben the Flat Top.
First, the publisher of the song, with whom Trey has been communicating, cannot find the original documentation for it. They’ve been looking for a few months now. I’m not even 100% convinced that they are the original publisher. The evidence we have for them as the publisher is a little bit weak.
Second, we need clearance from Saxie Dowell’s next of kin who would have inherited the rights to the song, but he didn’t have any children. So we don’t know who the rights belong to. It depends on who inherited his catalog of songs. I’ve tried reaching out to a couple of his relatives but they did not respond. I could be a little more aggressive in trying to contact them, but there’s no point if we can’t get the rights from the publisher.
If that isn’t difficult enough, we have one document that indicates there was a second author of the song, but we only have a rank and last name for him and we can’t figure out who this person was. He wasn’t a member of the Franklin crew. The song Big Ben the Flat Top was written for the Franklin’s commissioning, so another author would not have necessarily been assigned to the ship.
In other words, it’s not looking very promising for us to be able to revive and record the song Big Ben the Flat Top for the film, which is too bad because the full arrangement probably hasn’t been played by a band since the 1940s.
You can read more about Saxie Dowell and The Flattoppers here on author Glenn Ross’ website.
