Last night, Christmas drink with a Navy buddy. Got to talking about the new "supercarrier" christened earlier this month on Veterans Day. USS Gerald Ford. Navy calls it its "greatest engineering feat ever," and who am I to argue? The largest, at 90,000 tons, and the most technologically sophisticated ship every built. And, at an estimated $13 billion, certainly the most expensive.
Anyway, my buddy being a Chief--the backbone of the service; what a Gunny is to the Marines--I was surprised he'd never heard the tale of Gerry Ford and the Typhoon. Particularly this year being President Gerald Ford's centennial and all. Just goes to show how some people, even when they become the most public of figures, continue to play their cards close to the vest.
So I told him the story. And now I'm going to tell you.
Happened 69 years ago next week. December 18, 1944. Lt. (jg) Jerry Ford was Officer of the Deck on the carrier U.S.S. Monterey's midnight-to-4 a.m. midwatch. The Monterey was part of Admiral William "Bull" Halsey's Pacific Fleet steaming toward the Philippines to backstop General Douglas MacArthur's famous "I Shall Return" invasion. Only thing was, Halsey's fleet wasn't the only thing skimming the surface out there in the vast Western Pacific that day. Following close behind him, and catching up fast, was the most powerful typhoon of the 20th century.
Halsey knew about it, knew the storm was on a collision course with his ships. But the "Fightin' Admiral," being as stubborn as, well, a bull, didn't care. These weren't some ancient wooden triremes sailing a wine-dark sea. He was commanding the United States Navy's mighty Third Fleet. He'd plow right through the weather. Big mista ke. Gerry Ford sensed it right off.
From the bridge of the Monterey, Ford watched the lashing rain and 60-knot winds whip the sea into liquid mountains that seemed to defy gravity, gigantic walls of dark green water cresting at between 40 and 70 feet. The waves reeled in from starboard in constant sets, battering the Monterey's hull and washing over her flight deck. Soon enough Ford had difficulty making out any of the other 130-odd American vessels through his binoculars.
Ford was 31 years old, and had been an officer on the aircraft carrier for 18 months. He'd seen plenty of combat action, commanding an anti-aircraft gun in the ship's stern through several kamikaze attacks. But neither he nor anyone else on the Monterey that dark morning had ever sailed through this kind of peril. The Monterey carried 23 aircraft--14 fighters, nine torpedo bomber--divided and stowed between the flight and hangar decks. Before retiring the night before, its skipper, Captain St uart H. (Slim) Ingersoll, had ordered all topside planes as well as any moveable gear lashed down with half-inch cable. He'd also had the aviation fuel drained from the aircraft stowed below. At least he tried.
When Ford's watch was over he made his way below deck and crawled into his bunk. It seemed that his head had barely hit the pillow before Capt. Ingersoll sounded General Quarters. Ford bolted upright and thought he smelled smoke from somewhere amidships. Racing through the rolling companionway dimly lit by red battle lights, he reached the catwalk encircling the flight deck. His foot hit the first rung of the skipper's ladder leading to the bridge at the precise moment a 70-foot wave broke over the Monterey like an avalanche. The carrier pitched 25 degrees to port, and Ford was knocked flat on his back. He began skimming across the flight deck as if riding a toboggan. By this time the waves were up over the ship's island superstructure, and Ford was taking a 20 -second slide down the flight deck. He was about to go overboard.
Before the war Ford had been an All-American football player at the University of Michigan, and he had passed up a professional contract in order to attend Yale Law School. But he remained in good shape, and this is what saved his life as the marbled whitewater washed him across the flight deck of the carrier. Around the deck of every aircraft carrier is a tiny steel lip called the combing, about two inches high, designed to keep the flight crews' tools from slipping overboard. When Ford's feet collided with the combing he managed to slow his slide enough to twist like an acrobat, grab the ridge with his fingertips, and fling himself down onto the ship's catwalk. He landed flat on his back. As the Monterey reeled through another trough, he got to his knees, made his way back below decks, and started back up again.
By the time he finally reached the bridge the Monterey was in major distress. The e xposed aircraft on the her flight deck remained miraculously lashed tight, but down in the hangar deck one plane had broken free from its cables and began bouncing about like a pinball. As it crashed into other aircraft they too broke loose, and showers of sparks flew like the Fourth of July. Warbirds collided with each other and slammed into the ship's bulkheads. Soon the sparks from the collisions ignited the planes' gas tanks and turned them into skidding torches. Although Capt. Ingersoll had drained the tanks, it had been impossible to deplete them of every last drop of fuel, much less the explosive gasoline vapors. The hangar deck of the Monterey became a burning cauldron of aircraft fuel, and one flaming plane plunged down into the carrier's elevator shaft and threatened the magazines stored in the ship's pit.
As all hands worked frantically to jettison the ammunition before the heat touched it off, the flames from the burning aircraft were sucked down into the air intakes of the lower decks. Fires began breaking out below. One sailor was already dead, and another 33 were down with asphyxiation. With no one to tend them, three of the ship's four boilers were out. If she lost her last boiler, the carrier would also lose the pressure in the fire hoses now fighting the conflagration in the hangar deck. The Monterey was ablaze from stem to stern.
Ignoring Admiral Halsey's radio order to abandon ship, Capt. Ingersoll ordered Lt. Ford to lead a team down to the hangar deck, evacuate the wounded, and douse the flames. Ford donned a gas mask and assembled a fire brigade. While aircraft gas tanks exploded and hose handlers slid across the burning hangar deck, into this furnace Ford led his men. His first order of business was to carry out the unconscious survivors. As one firefighter was overcome by smoke, or burned by the shooting flames, another sailor would take his place.
At 9:41 a.m., Capt. Ingersoll finally radioed Flag Plot. "Have fire under control. Prefer to lie to until we can make formation speed." One by one the carrier's boilers were brought back on line. Of her 23 aircraft, the Monterey had lost 18 planes burned in the hangar deck or blown off the flight deck, with all the others seriously damaged. But in large part because of Jerry Ford and his fire fighters, the ship was saved.
When I once interviewed the then-93-year-old former President he told me, "I remembered that fire at the height of the typhoon, and I considered it a marvelous metaphor for the ship of state."
And that's pretty much all he ever said about it. Playing his cards, as ever, close to the vest. Pretty good Christmas story, if you ask me.
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