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

Sea Power, May 2003 by Gardner, Sherry L

LUCKY LADY: The World War II Heroics of the USS Sante Fe and Franklin, by Steve Jackson. New York, N.Y.: Carroll & Graf, Jan. 2003. 528 pp. $28.00. ISBN: 0-7867-1061-6. The crew of the aircraft carrier Franklin became the most decorated in U.S. naval history, and the crew of the cruiser Sante Fe was awarded a unit commendation for its action in saving the Franklin and her crew.

Author Steve Jackson, whose father served on the Sante Fe, recreates the legendary WWII histories of both ships through the eyes of the men on board, from Pearl Harbor to the Philippines to the waters off Japan, through encounters with kamikazes, typhoons, ship-to-ship combat, and the deaths of shipmates. On 19 March 1945, two 500-pound bombs struck the Franklin, leaving hundreds dead and wounded in the conflagration. In an amazing and heroic feat of seamanship the Sante Fe, while still being attacked by other Japanese aircraft, bellied up to the listing flaming hull of the Franklin and rescued more than 800 sailors. In this exciting book of Americans performing the ultimate in sacrifice and bravery, readers come to know the ship's crews as ordinary men who triumphed under extraordinary circumstances. With 19 black-and-white photographs, bibliography, and index.