With boot camp and quartermaster school newly under my belt, I reported in July 1943 to the new destroyer Franks, which was just about to go into commission in Bremerton, Washington. I lived in a receiving ship with other crew members until the ship was completed. Later, on board the Franks, I lived in a compartment amidships. Radiomen, sonarmen, signalmen, and quartermasters all seemed to be in the same area. The bunks were three tiers high, and I had the lowest one. Being a third class petty officer, I don’t think I had any priorities.
The Franks went into commission on Friday, 30 July. I felt fortunate in going to a new ship. The Franks was part of the Fletcher class, and that was supposed to be the latest technology in the Navy. Everybody said, “Hey, you’re on a Fletcher-class destroyer; that’s great!” We seemed to be getting the best there was. Crew members with previous sea experience raved about this new type of destroyer.
We soon got under way for shakedown training, and that was really my introduction to the business of being a quartermaster. Much of the rating has to be learned on board ship at sea, not in a classroom. We had a chief quartermaster by the name of Justin Grace who knew his way around the bridge and served as the mother hen for me. Once I got over my seasickness the first several days, I found myself enjoying the experience a great deal. It was nice being on the bridge, because that’s where all the action was. You knew where the ship was going. You knew what the captain said. In fact, every time I came down to the chow line, other enlisted men would ask me what was going on.
Once our training was complete, we left for Pearl Harbor. We knew it was the last day we’d see the States for a long time. But I always knew I’d be back sooner or later—just a matter of time. In six months we’d wipe the Japs off the face of the earth, and we’d be back home. It was just a good, happy feeling. Raising the flag and going to war seemed like a picnic to me and my friends aboard ship.
We started operating with aircraft carriers shortly after our arrival in the Hawaii area. When the signal for commencing flight operations was hoisted, the Franks left her screen position and maneuvered in behind a carrier to serve as a Plane guard. If a plane went into the water, our first skipper. Commander Nicholas Lidstone, liked to maneuver as close as possible to the downed pilot and lower a whaleboat to rescue him.
The following year, Commander David Stephan took command, and he felt that the whaleboat technique was dangerous, especially in rough weather. Besides, it took too long to get to the Pilot. So he put together a team of three swimmers to attempt rescues. One of our boatswain’s mates devised a special leather harness-type belt that could be attached to a swimmer. At the back of the belt a line was fastened to an eye ring. The swimmer would dive into the water and swim towards the pilot. When he got to the pilot, he would grip an arm around him and signal for the men on deck to Pull him back to the ship. The Franks Wound up rescuing many a pilot that way.
As the ship approached combat for the first time, Hawaii was our last chance for liberty. The thing I remember about Honolulu was the lines of sailors, soldiers, and Marines waiting to go into houses of prostitution. There could have been about 100 guys in a line. Some were reading newspapers, some were reading magazines, and some shooting the breeze— just waiting their turn. In the building next door was a similar line of guys waiting to get prophylactic treatment. Later on, when we came back to Honolulu, it seemed the lines had disappeared. Evidently someone complained, and I guess the government put a stop to it.
When we got under way from Pearl Harbor, we had no idea what our mission would be. The ships took off in small groups; in our case we went out as part of a four-ship division. After a while, we joined up with a task force and learned that our mission would be supporting the invasion of the Gilbert Islands. That was when we lost our illusions about going on a picnic. The first time we experienced the horrors of war was when a ship in our own formation was torpedoed. The escort carrier Liscome Bay (CVE-56) exploded and sank in 23 minutes. She went down just before sunrise. I remember it was just like putting a candle out. The ball of fire was snuffed out as the ship sank. I think that sort of scared everybody. We just sort of felt, “My gosh, this is for real.”
That experience and the operations that followed did a lot to bring the crew together. When I had first reported, Chief Quartermaster Grace resented my getting a third class rate when I hadn’t been to sea. He told me it took him 12 years to become a third class quartermaster in the regular Navy, so I could understand his feeling. He and the other senior petty officers were being forced to adjust to a Navy that was a lot different from the one they grew up in. But once we got into action and the newcomers showed that they could do their jobs, that initial resentment disappeared. Then we had good camaraderie.
As the months went on, life settled into a routine of battle stations, watch standing, meals, sleep, reading, and writing letters. I would say that the biggest recreation we had was just shooting the breeze with other members of the crew. We talked about liberties—both past and future—about our experiences back home, our families, sports, things on board ship, and, of course, about girls.
In the early part of 1944, we spent a lot of time in the Solomons. One of our assignments was patrolling as a screen for minelayers laying mines in the Buka Passage. On 16 May, a submarine was spotted in the area, so three cans from Destroyer Division 94 were dispatched to hunt for it. The Haggard (DD-555) and the Johnston (DD-557) joined the Franks on that operation. I recall that we threw depth charges over, and there was a tremendous mushroom type of upheaval directly astern of our ship, and we saw a lot of debris in the water. We put out a whaleboat to retrieve a lot of the floating junk, including some condoms that were among the remains of the submarine. With the combination of all of us, we had sunk the I-176.
The following month we were involved in the Marianas Turkey Shoot as part of the operation to capture the island of Saipan. Carrier planes shot down more than 300 Japanese aircraft, and we had a great view. There was also a lot of antiaircraft firing; the sky looked like it was filled with black pockmarks. As a group we felt very confident because we were in a powerful fleet. You looked out on the horizon and you saw these aircraft carriers, saw all those battleships, and you saw 30 destroyers in a circle. With all this firepower you felt that you could take on anybody. I would have hated like hell to be out by ourselves to face the enemy.
After every campaign, the captain would give a report on the loudspeaker of what we did. Sometimes he would provide us with a written report. I know that Captain Stephan gave us a nice letter after we were in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, telling exactly what we did and saying that we were on the first team. I sent it home, and I guess my sister gave it to a reporter. They put it in the paper: “Mike Bak on the first team.” It was kind of a neat thing.
We continued on with various operations, and then on 25 October we were in a battle I remember very distinctly—the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I had just finished eating breakfast, about 7:00 or 7:15 in the morning, when the loudspeaker announced, “General quarters, general quarters, man your battle stations. Enemy fleet is on the horizon.” I didn’t believe it until I ran to the bridge and looked out. I saw what looked like toothpicks—the masts of many, many ships right across the horizon. Our destroyers were protecting the jeep carriers at that point, and several of them went in to make torpedo runs, including our sister ship Johnston, which was sunk.
When the Japanese fleet was coming at us, our job was to stay between our carriers and the Japanese ships. We were going back and forth, sort of fishtailing, because our carriers couldn’t go too fast. While we were steering back and forth, the Japs were shooting at us and dropping shells around us. When the shells landed, the splashes were marked by colored dye. We were going right full rudder, left full rudder, right full rudder, left full rudder while all this was happening.
On the bridge, we didn’t know what the hell to do. I went under the chart table, which was a ridiculous place to go. As soon as I got there, a yeoman jumped on top of me. The two of us tried to hide, although that table wouldn’t have provided much protection against a battleship projectile. I would say that that battle was the biggest fear I had in the Navy. At one point, we were told we were going in for a torpedo run. That was called off because of what had happened to the other ships, so then we were ordered to make a smoke screen instead. Finally, the shooting stopped, and I had mixed feelings—relief on the one hand, yet on the other hand, you knew you lost guys from the other ships.
Two months later, in mid-December, we ran into a hazard of another sort. That was the time of the great typhoon. The weather got worse and worse, the winds stronger and stronger. Visibility was very poor, and the waves were mountainous. The seas were so high that you could not see any ship in the formation. I saw fellows in the water, but we couldn’t help them, because our whaleboats were ripped away. We couldn’t steer the ship.
One time I was actually climbing on the pilothouse bulkhead, almost walking on it as the ship rolled over to one side. As the ship rolled back the other way, we walked down one side and up the other. I remember distinctly one time where the ship rolled far to the side and stayed there for a full minute—it just froze there. Then the ship slowly came back, and we started rolling again. My guess is that the maximum roll was close to 80 degrees. I thought we were going to take water into the stacks. As the storm eased, so did the rolling, and we steamed to Ulithi Atoll afterward to get our damaged topside repaired.
By the beginning of 1945 we were well past our feelings that we would be home any time soon. I don’t think anybody aboard the ship had any feeling other than that it was going to be a long, drawn-out war. In January we accompanied Admiral Halsey into the South China Sea to go after ships that we had missed at Leyte Gulf. We could see him on the battleship New Jersey when we refueled at sea. He’d be sitting up there on the bridge, you know, looking around and wearing his cap. Everybody pointed, “There's Bull Halsey.” It was just kind of a neat feeling to know that the main fleet commander of the Pacific war was right next to you, and you were part of that fleet.
At the beginning of April, the Franks got a lot closer to the New Jersey than any of us wanted. I remember distinctly it was a very dark night, and the weather was not good at all. We were in a carrier formation during flight operations. When the flying ended, we left our plane guard station astern of the Yorktown (CV-10) and headed toward our regular screen station on the outer circle of the formation-
I was down below decks when it seemed like we hit something. I thought we had hit a mine in the forward part of the ship because there was a sudden jolt- In the after berthing compartment, all the lights went out, and the ship began rolling back and forth. I was in my shorts- but as quickly as I could I ran topside, because I figured we were going to be going overboard. When I got to my battle station, half of the port side of the bridge was sliced away. That’s when I learned that the Franks had run into the battleship New Jersey. Her anchor was at the same height as the destroyer’s bridge.
Following the immediate aftermath- Captain Stephan was transported to a fleet oiler for medical attention. We knew that he was critically injured; he had some ribs broken into his lungs. He died about a day or two later, and I recall leaving our ship in a whaleboat to go to the oiler to attend his funeral service. His body was in a canvas bag with an American flag draped over it. After a brief ceremony and eulogy, the platform with the bag on it was raised, and the body slid into the water. It was a very sad experience.
After temporary repairs at Ulithi, we went back to Pearl Harbor and then back to Bremerton, Washington, where the ship had been commissioned. I flew home on leave to New Jersey and visited the girl who later became my wife. Everyone back home was just as friendly as they could be. Every house seemed to have a blue star in the window, representing a family member in service, or a gold star if a member of the family was killed.
Even though that time was very enjoyable, I was anxious to get back to the ship. I missed the guys I had lived and served with for so many months. We were a team, and we knew we were going back out to be part of the action. We had been the rookies two years earlier. Now we were the salty ones, sporting our battle ribbons and our pride at what we had accomplished.
As we headed toward the Marshall Islands to resume the war, we learned of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Soon after that came the Japanese surrender. We joined up with Task Force 38 and headed toward Japan. Our function initially was to be ready for a surprise suicide attack. Fortunately, it never came about.
After that we went to the Japanese naval base at Yokosuka as part of the occupation forces. We tied up, and then we had to walk down a long pier. There were a bunch of Japanese boys and girls— maybe 9, 10, 11 years old—putting their hands out. They couldn’t talk in English; they were just looking for something we would give them. A short distance behind them, maybe 50-100 yards away, were the parents of these kids. I also met an elderly Japanese gentleman who spoke good English. We talked about five or ten minutes, just shot the breeze about the war and its ending. He seemed to want to talk about how happy he was that nobody was going to get hurt anymore. I felt the same.
The rest was anticlimactic. The ship steamed to Astoria, Oregon, for Navy Day in late October, then down to San Pedro, California. That was a dull period as the Franks and her crew sat around and killed time. Each crew member had a certain amount of points built up, based on his war record. Since I had been one of the first ones aboard, I was off the ship sooner than most. I was discharged and went back home again. I was happy to get out of the Navy. The war was over, and it was time to get on with the rest of my life.
XO Overboard
One of the most bizarre memories of my time in the Franks came in March 1945, when we were heading for strikes against Kyushu, Japan. Our executive officer disappeared from the ship. When I had gone down one previous time to wake him up for star sights, he was sleeping with a .45 on his chest.
On the day of his disappearance, I was also supposed to wake him up for star sights. However, he was nowhere to be found. A search of the ship was organized without success. Much to our surprise, about an hour later, a destroyer in the stem of our formation, the USS Scott, sent a radio message saying that they had picked up our XO out of the water. He was lucky that the Franks was in the forward part of the formation.
Some people thought he might have fallen overboard; others thought he might have been pushed or gone over on his own. My own Personal feeling is that he jumped overboard trying to commit suicide. The cold water must have given him second thoughts.
Michael Bak, Jr.
The foregoing is an excerpt from Mr. Bak’s 242-page Naval Institute oral history transcript. It is based on interviews with Paul Stillwell on 19 March 1984, 10 April 1984, and 11 June 1986. For a catalog covering the entire collection of completed transcripts, please send $4.00 to Director of Oral History, U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland 21402.