Customer Reviews

Lucky Lady: The World War II Heroics of the USS Santa Fe and Franklin

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Sometimes, a lock is the key.

When Colorado author Steve Jackson found a lock of honey-colored hair buried deep in an old box his father kept from World War II, an epic story unfolded before him. The hair was his mother's - before she was his mother, or even his father's bride - and the story was the story of a generation before it became known as the "greatest generation."

Jackson's new non-fiction book "Lucky Lady" - a departure from his best-selling true-crime books such as "Rough Trade" and "No Stone Unturned" - is the story of two ships, two crews, and at its heart, the relatively few years that changed his father's life. The result: a history of men at war with all the pathos of Ernie Pyle and the historic intuition of Stephen Ambrose. All told, Jackson's account is unsentimental when it might have been maudlin, and eloquent when it might have been academic.

A Midwestern farm boy from a broken family, Donald Jackson joined the U.S. Navy before the war. He was due to muster out in 1942, but then came Dec. 7, 1941. The radioman, wearing his sweetheart's ring around his neck with his dogtags, came aboard the cruiser USS Santa Fe in 1943.

Known as the Lucky Lady because she logged the war's longest tour - 221,750 miles with stops in such exotic hotspots as Wake Island, Tarawa, Saipan and Iwo Jima -- with only two casualties and insignificant damage, the Santa Fe became her crew's guardian angel and surrogate soul.

The USS Franklin was the United States' fifth Essex-class aircraft carrier and the fifth naval vessel to carry the name - the original was a fishing boat loaned to the Continental Army in 1775 and re-named for Ben Franklin. Although "Big Ben" bore the seemingly unlucky naval designation as CV-13, she'd become World War II's most decorated naval vessel.

The Franklin and Santa Fe crossed historic paths on March 19, 1945, when a lone Japanese plane dropped two bombs on Big Ben, penetrating both the ship's bowels and brain. Dead in the water without radio contact and very little power, the Franklin was burning fast and listing badly. Worse, much of its crew had been blown overboard, killed or wounded.

With 724 killed and 265 wounded, the Franklin's surviving 106 officers and 604 crewmen valiantly tried to save the ship. Jackson recounts the heroic efforts of many of them, including eventual Medal of Honor winners Lt. Cdr. Joseph T. O'Callahan, a chaplain who administered last rites, organized firefighters and rescuers, and helped flood munition magazines before they could explode; and Lt. (jg) Donald Gary, who discovered 300 men trapped in a charred mess hall and made several trips below to lead them to safety.

The Santa Fe's crew was no less heroic as it pulled alongside to pluck sailors from the sea and cram its decks and wardrooms with the Franklin's wounded.

But "Lucky Lady" isn't just the story of inanimate steel, fuel oil, and gunpowder that make warships. It's about the men - boys, really - who are the spirit and soul of these two ships.

Through them and many others, Jackson captures not only the battle histories of two legendary ships, but the bluejacket's life, from the captain's chair to the deepest, darkest corners of the bilge-soaked hold, from boot camp ("Do you like girls, sailor?") to burial at sea. All of it is retold here through the eyes of the men who faced death and survived.

It is good to be reminded of common men's grace under fire, and that each of them enters the world stage from a place far away. Jackson's old soldiers, already fading away, help him bring this splendid, moving history to readers who will never know them.

As the son of one of the men on the Santa Fe, I had the privilege of being allowed to read the original draft of Lucky Lady. My father told many stories about the war as I was growing up, but the author was able to draw out considerably more than I ever could have from my father, as well as from many others. This book is not all guns and bayonets, but goes into the lives of the crewmembers, and to some extent, the families waiting back home. It was fascinating following the transformation of the sailors, some only teenagers, as they fought for their lives, and how their lives were forever changed by the experience. Lucky Lady is written in a way that shows how the entire generation of people changed, not just the few selected for the book.

Through the eyes of many different men on different ships, from engine rooms to airplanes, Lucky Lady makes the reader feel like a part of the crew. The rescue of and survival of the Franklin is the obvious highlight of this book, but that incident was one day of a multi-year experience. The reader shares the terror of being on a ship hit by a Kamikaze, and the sadness of watching the Marines land on an island. Even the victory of sinking a Japanese ship was not cause for celebration as the men on the surviving ships knew it could have as easily been Americans waiting to die in the water.

Regardless of your age or interest, I think everyone will enjoy Lucky Lady.

Steve Jackson, in his new book Lucky Lady, has provided us with an insight not often seen into the annals of Military history. Jackson has chosen to focus on Naval history during World War II, with an emphasis on two ships that are seemingly unrelated except for their assignment into the same task forces during combat exercises.

Jackson interviewed many of the ships' crew members in order to tell their tales, and supplemented that material with official histories of the ships and their combat experiences.

I found Jackson's style of writing to be easy to read, and very descriptive of the events encountered by the crew members. I thoroughly enjoyed his style of bringing the sailors to life in the book, and explaining the grim realities of naval & air combat.

The book also gave me new insights into some of the key military players in the war - I have a different perspective now of Admiral Halsey than I did when I started the book, and Captain Gehres is a man that I had never heard of, but I now have seen an interesting perspective of the man and respect for his struggles to save his ship.

I feel that although Jackson has provided us with a strong narrative history, he sometimes repeats information that was previously written in the book. The seemingly haphazard style of bouncing between the events occuring on the two ships sometimes leads to confusion, but this is easily overcome if each chapter/section is read as a separate "tale" to be told about naval warfare in the Pacific.

I think that this is a very good book, and will interest anyone that has a desire to learn more about warfare and the men who fought on these two ships.

Author Steve Jackson has done a remarkable job of describing the lives of two great ships; the light cruiser USS Santa Fe and the aircraft carrier USS Franklin. Jackson got his inspiration for this great book by coming across a lock of hair that his mother had sent to his father, who was a radioman aboard the Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe was one of the newest light cruisers in the Pacific fleet. weighing in at 11,000 tons, it was hard to describe her as "light". She packed a powerful punch, with twelve six-inch guns in her main battery, and numerous 5-inch, 40mm, and 20mm for anti-aircraft defense. She also held the record for the longest cruise without being sent back to the United States, but she claimed her nickname, the "Lucky Lady", from somehow managing to stay out of harm's way, and she suffered no casualties of her own during the course of the war.

The Franklin was one of the new Essex-class aircraft carriers that began rolling out of U.S. Navy shipyards in early 1943. At over 850 feet long, she was nearly as big as three football fields, plus she could carry 100 aircraft as well. However, she had her share of run-ins with the Japanese and, unlike the Santa Fe, was heavily damaged by a kamakaze in October 1944.

These two ships' lives intertwined forever on the day of March 19, 1945. Sailing less than 100 miles from mainland Japan, an enemy dive bomber managed to make it past the combat air patrol and the anti-aircraft defenses to put two 500 lb bombs into the Franklin. The carrier was loaded with bombs, torpedoes, and thousands of gallons of oil and aviation gas and soon became a blazing inferno. The Santa Fe was part of the screening force surrounding the carrier group and was soon on her way to help the injured flattop. Undeterred by the flames and explosions, the captain of the Santa Fe manuvered his ship directly alongside the Franklin to assist in fire-fighting operations and the removal of injured personnel. For over two hours, the Santa Fe risked herself to help the Franklin and its crew.

Despite the horrendous damage and the loss of over 700 of her crew, the Franklin managed to limp back to the United States under her own power for repairs.

Much of the credit for the saving of the Franklin belongs to her heroic crew, who fought fires and rescued wounded comrades without regards for thier own personal safety. The Santa Fe also deserves credit for assisting in fire fighting operations as well as removal of wounded men while placing herself directly in harm's way.

This is an extraordinary book. The author does an excellent job of describing the saga of these two ships and their crews. The camaraderie of the crewmembers shines through on each page, and the heroics of these young men are discussed vividly. He devotes equal time to the stories of each ship, their crew, and the battles they fought. The highlight of the book is the impeccable narrative concerning the bombing attack on the Franklin and the heroic actions of the Santa Fe to help the injured carrier. Read this excellent work of naval history and discover how two ships, working together, overcame nearly impossible odds.

Very interesting reading.. so much I never knew nor would have known had I not read this book..
reading from the perspective of the men, is very emotional..
knowing what they were thinking, what they went through and how they felt at that time, rather than just reading generic accounts of the War and how the War was fought.. To be able to get into these truly brave mens lives, to put a person with a name.. who was waiting for them back home and what they did to help win the War and to get themselves home to their loved ones.. An excellent lesson for all to read..

This was an amazing book. I only wish my grandfather were alive to give me first hand details about what happened during all those conflicts on the Santa Fe. It was like I had him back for the week I was reading it. I highly reccommend this book to anyone that wants to read about what real heroism is. It's a shining example of why that generation was our golden one.

I think the book was very well written and easy to follow. I know it doesn't read like a history book or an article in Time magazine. It doesn't follow a strict timeline. but if you can manage to read at the highschool level you should have no problem following along.

For those of you who put the book down because of historical inaccuracy I ask you this. Were you there, did you serve, where did you get your accurate information. The reason I ask is because so much of what we are taught is so riddled with blunders that we couldn't find absolute truth where war or political history is involved if we wanted to. All the books are written to glorify or vilify, not to let us know the truth. All we can do is read it all and come up with a best guess.

We need books like this to remind us of what made this country great. All the detractors out there should look in the mirror and ask what have you done? The world needs heros and tales of great courage, this book gives us that and more. It was an amazing read, if you like military history, war stories, or just a great story of some ordinary men put in an extraordinary situation this is the read for you.

I wish my dad was still alive to see this book, and that I could talk to him about it. He (Robert H. Hofer) was a Machinist's Mate on the Santa Fe for most of its career, and I remember hearing him describe the saving of the Franklin, and seeing steel burn as the Franklin's magazines exploded and showered the deck of the Santa Fe with fire; and also what it was like to work down in the engine room while the ship manuvered off the beach at Iwo Jima, exposed to shore fire. The descriptions in this book are incredibly vivid and exciting, and answer a lot of the questions I wish I could ask my dad today. Forgive any errors of fact -- maybe the author has read all the reviews and will put out a revised version in the future. If you've ever wondered what it must have been like to be 19 years old, in the middle of the Pacific, fighting the Japanese in the biggest naval battles in history, then you've got to read this book.

Steven Jackson does a great job of telling the stories of many of the sailors on both the Santa Fe and the Franklin. The variety and depth of stories told shows his care for the veterans involved. Interwoven amongst the personal histories is a fairly conventional history of the the war in the Pacific. As other reviewers note there are a number of historical errors, some more grating than others. A general reader will get a good overview of the history of war against the Japanese seen through the lens of the experiences of these two vessels and their crews. A more knowledgeable reader may be distracted. But it is a story worth reading, despite it's faults. One should read this book with a focus of hearing the sea stories and the drama of the tale. This is the story you would hear as told by a veteran, errors and all. For an accurate history or the Pacific war, there are other, better (and dryer) sources. But few more exciting.

This is a great tale of two great ships, a very big war, a fanatical and ultimately suicidal enemy, and men of courage and resolution. It is told with a great deal of humanity and empathy and evokes a time and unity of purpose now long gone. The young sailors and airmen who fought the war in the Pacific served in the most vast war front of all. The distances they covered are almost incomprehensible... as was the savagery of the combat.

I read the prologue to this book and was prepared to like it, because of the people whose lives it recounts and the service they gave. The author does a masterful job of making you know these men by recounting just how they came to be on the SANTA FE and the FRANKLIN that day the kamikaze came. He is to be commended for setting of the stage and the handling of the life and death struggles that ensued.

But, and it is a large BUT, this is one of the most poorly edited books I have ever struggled through. It's all about the old Navy AOCS phrase, "Attention to detail." Just a few examples: the Japanese aircraft are almost always mis-identified, unless it is the ubiquitous Zero. The allies provided code names for the Japanese aircraft. The "Tony," "Frank," and "Oscar" were fighters, not dive bombers. The four-engined seaplane "Emily" is also identified as a dive bomber! The gun turret in the Navy Avenger torpedo plane had a single gun, not two. The canopy on the Helldiver was not hydraulicly raised; it slid to the rear. As another reviewer pointed out, the multi-role "Betty" did not have wing guns or a belly gun. Dates, particularly in the first part of the book go to 1944, when the correct date is 1943... I could go on and on. This is just sloppy work and distracts from the reading pleasure of anyone acquainted with the facts. The argument might be "what does it matter sixty years later?" Maybe not a lot to some, but little details matter a lot in life and to staying alive for those in combat. It just reinforces the fact that no one edits for accuracy or if they do, they often have no idea about the subject matter. Sad.

This is a good story and has the benefit of being true. It deserves to be widely read with the understanding that it could have been outstanding with decent editing.

As did some of the other reviewers, I noted some mistakes. Post a message if I'm wrong, but the photo of the men allegedly running on the deck of the USS Franklin after the kamakazie attack in October 1944 was actually taken on the USS Bunker Hill the following year. (I have seen it published in one of the Time-Life books on the second World War, which noted it as such.) There were also some errors in terms of grammar and usage.

I also wondered what happened to Captain Gehres, the chaplain who won the Medal of Honor and so many others. The author noted that there limitations in terms of space, but I wouldn't have minded a longer book.

Otherwise, the book was wonderful. It seemed to take a while to get to the attack on the USS Franklin in March of 1945, and (as many reviewers have noted) the organization was poor, with way too many flashbacks. But I enjoyed the description of the attack and its aftermath.

The detail was excellent. I felt as if I were on the ship fighting for my life along with the enlisted men and the officers. I could feel the confusion which resulted along with the fears of everyone on the Franklin and the Santa Fe of the ships sinking and further attacks--the ships were not too far from the Japanese islands when the Franklin was attacked by the dive bomber.

Aside from the shortcomings, this is an excellent book which depicted a major attack and how people reacted to it. It describes one of the U.S. Navy's finest hours in the second World War.