The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-05-18
1000 Died On Ship
 Hit By Jap Plane
(Continued from Page D

Other stories involving ships which were saved by their heroic crews to return to battle after Sus- taining damage must in many cas- es,' the navy said remain cloaked by security for some time
 Proud Record
 Hero ship or not, Big Ben came to her time of supreme trial with a proud record behind her. She went to war, from Pearl Harbor, on June Is, l944. four and half months after being commissioned. Since then she had fought in two inva- sions and six carrier strikes. She had been hit once before, late last October in the battle of Leyte Gulf, She was repaired at Bremerton, Wash, and returned to service.
 Before the March battle, Big Ben had destroyed l99 enemy planes, l49.500 tons O. enemy warships, 275 900 tons of merchant vessels, and for extra measure three Jap anese destroyers and four cargo craft.
 On the morning of March 19, Big Ben was carrier division flag ship flying the flag of Rear Ad- miral Ralph A. Davison. Also aboard as an observer, was Rear Admiral Gerald Began.
 In strikes the day before, Big Ben's planes had shot down r Jap anese aircraft destroyed seven on the ground, and damaged l2 others, she had lost four planes and three pilots.
 Big Ben was launching her war planes again. Eight Corsair fight etrs and eight or nine Helldivers had roared into the air, Then, precisely at 708 a. m, the Japanese dive bomber streaked out of the clouds.
 Alvin S. Mccoy of the Kansas City Star, the only war correspon- dent aboard, witnessed and describ- ed what happened next His ex- elusive stories were made available to the co.lbined American Press. The enemy launched his bombs, Mccoy said, "at the precise mo- ment when they would cause the most destruc tion,"
 "It never has happened before and probably never will happen again" Mccoy reported.
 Cmdr. E. B. Parker. air group commander aboard the Franklin, was aloft at the time, spotted the Japanese and shot him down. But the damage was done. Gasoline bombs and ammunition began to explode.
 Men were blown off the flight deck into the sea. burned to a crisp in soaring white-hot flash of flame that swept the hangar deck, or trapped in compartments below and suffocated by smoke" Mccoy wrote. Scores drowned in the sea. Other scores were torn by jagged chunks of shrapnel.'
 The crew was not at battle sta tions at the time. Many men were at breakfast. Others, dog tired, were in their hunks. A long line of enlisted men was moving slowly through batch to the mess hall below
 Presumably all were killed in- stanuy when the white hot flash swept the deck" Mccoy said. Their bodies remained in the area for hours, many with their clothing burned of and even dog tags melted
 Planes massed on the after deck burned and exploded, Rockets were set afr and whizzed waist high along the deck or scared over the ships island.
 The initial blast" Mccoy said, set fire to gasoline and some 22 or more planes on the hangar deck below, each gassed and armed with bombs and rockets.
 Deck Raging Inferno
 Instantly the hangar deck be- came raging inferno, snuffing out the lives of virtually every man at work on the planes. Bombs and rockets exploded with shattering blasts"
 The fire and explosions continued At Il a. m. four hours after the attack, a gigantic explosion in the stern rocked the whole ship.
 The proudest line in the various accounts of the disaster was written by an anonymous Navy reporter With the entire after end of the flight deck mass of flames and smoke, with airplanes and crews dis integrating in an instant, with gaso- line pouring over the sides of the hangar deck like blazing Mag