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ALLAN
CHRISTIE (“Ace”) EDMANDS, Sr., was
born 10 June 1911 in Saugus, Massachusetts. He grew up in nearby
Andover, graduating high school in 1929 and enlisting in the Navy.
He soon became a candidate for officer’s training and was enrolled
at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, graduating in 1935 and commissioned
as an Ensign. In 1937, he married Mary Anna Hawes; they had three
children: (Mary) Christine (1938), Allan Christie (1942), and Anna
Jane (“Janna,” 1944). Allan earned his “wings” from flight
school in Pensacola in 1940, making his nickname “Ace” even more
appropriate.
Ace
was stationed with his family at Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
serving as a Lieutenant on the light cruiser Astoria. When the
Japanese attacked, the Astoria was out at sea. His family was
sent back to the mainland in April 1942, but Ace needed to stay on and
fight the war. He flew missions in battles at the Coral Sea, Midway,
Savo Island (where he was wounded and where the Astoria was
sunk), and Tarawa. In one battle report, he confided to his captain
that he wasn’t sure how he would react at the sight of blood and
gore: “I found out before the night was over. . . . I was amazed I
wasn’t more scared, but things happen so fast there isn’t time.”
In
June 1944, as a Lieutenant Commander, Ace became skipper of Torpedo
Squadron 5, and began training his men on TBM Avenger torpedo bombers.
In January 1945, the squadron joined the aircraft carrier Franklin,
which sailed as part of a huge task force for the final assault on the
Japanese home islands, an assault expected to take up to a year and
cost several hundred thousand American casualties. Missions against
Kyushu targets began on 18 March, when the Franklin was within
60 miles of Japan.
On
the morning of 19 March, Ace and his squadron were warming up their
engines, preparing for a run on the strategic port of Kobe. A single
Japanese bomber emerged from the clouds and dropped two 550-pound
armor-piercing bombs on the Franklin. The
two explosions were only the beginning; they ignited aviation fuel
lines, bombs, rockets, and other ordnance aboard the ship, killing
nearly a thousand men—Ace among them. Amazingly, the Franklin, the
war’s most heavily damaged ship that did not sink, made a
12,000-mile trip home to Brooklyn with a skeleton crew of 710. (Other
survivors had been forced off, or blown off, the ship by the raging
conflagration, and they returned to the States on other vessels.)
I
am ALLAN CHRISTIE EDMANDS, Jr., born 9 June 1942, a day before
Ace’s 31st birthday, just after his flying missions in the Battle of
Midway. I never knew my father. To me as a child, he was a ghost hero,
without whom, I was convinced, we could not have won the war. I was
told that he had not regarded himself as a hero, that he had always
said he was just doing his job. What a job! He was a hero to me
nonetheless, a hero killed in action just before the war’s end. It
was obvious that he had been killed, but we never had a funeral, never
saw a body, never had a gravestone—so how could we know for sure?
Ace had sent a Valentine’s Day letter from Hawaii just before
cruising into the war zone. My mother continued sending letters to his
“fleet” address—VT5, c/o Fleet P.O., San Francisco, California—just
as though he were residing in a pleasant American city. The letters
would eventually be returned unopened and unread.
On
16 April, the Chief of Naval Personnel sent my mother an unwelcome
telegram that her husband was “missing” and that she must not aid
the enemy by divulging the name of his ship. The Navy Department
appreciated her great anxiety, “BUT
DETAILS NOT NOW AVAILABLE AND DELAY IN RECEIPT THEREOF MUST
NECESSARILY BE EXPECTED.”
Later that month she received a letter from the squadron’s exec
officer stating that Ace had been forced over the side in the
conflagrations and was “not seen after that.” He also stated that
Ace’s ring (which he had not been able to remove from his finger)
and his dog tags (which he never would have been without) had been
retrieved “from his room” and would be sent to her as soon as
possible (I have them now).
In
October the Navy Department sent another telegram: “A
CAREFUL REVIEW OF ALL FACTS AVAILABLE RELATING TO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF
YOUR HUSBAND LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ALLAN CHRISTIE EDMANDS USN PREVIOUSLY
REPORTED MISSING LEADS TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THERE IS NO HOPE FOR HIS
SURVIVAL AND THAT HE LOST HIS LIFE AS RESULT OF ENEMY ACTION ON 19
MARCH 1945 WHILE IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY.”
My mother fell apart with this news, sent with official “deep
regret” and “sincerest sympathy.” She gave baby Janna away to
her friend and fled home with Christine and me to her parents. I saw
Janna only four brief times when we were children.
Though
my mother later remarried a fine man, she told me about Ace, even
nurturing the fantasy (acknowledged as a remote possibility) that he
might still be alive. I fantasized that he had survived the explosions
and been captured by the Japanese, that he would escape and return
wearing his clean pressed Navy blues, not having aged a day. My
sisters entertained similar fantasies. Meanwhile, I was groomed for
Annapolis, to follow in Ace’s footsteps; I received an appointment
in 1960, but unfortunately I lacked the required 20/20 vision.
Over
the years, I’ve learned more about Ace. For example, my aunt told me
about his mischievous sense of humor: At a family dinner she handed
her plate to Ace and asked for another helping of mashed potatoes and
gravy. “How much?” he asked. “Just a little bit,” she said. He
very delicately put on her plate an eighth of a teaspoon of potatoes,
topped it with a drop of gravy, and handed the plate back.
I
now realize that Ace’s ring and dog tags must have been retrieved
from his remains, which were then buried at sea. The squadron's exec
officer, claiming these items had been found "in his room," had
wanted to shield my mother from the gruesome details. After
retiring from IBM in 2002, I located survivors of the Franklin, including
men in Ace’s squadron. One had witnessed the explosion that blew Ace
off the ship and killed him. Another told me of Ace in life: “If he
didn’t have his uniform on, you’d swear he wasn’t an officer. He
always talked to us like a regular guy.”
In
June 2003, I attended a reunion of Franklin survivors and
learned more details about Ace. I encourage other war orphans to
attend such reunions; not only will you fill gaps in your
understanding, you will likely help survivors with their long-enduring
"survivor's guilt."
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