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1945 Essex class carrier USS Franklin is struck by a Japanese dive bomber causing massive damage. The second largest loss of crew After USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

Before dawn on 19 March 1945, Franklin, which had maneuvered to within 50 miles (80 km) of the Japanese mainland, closer than any other U.S. carrier during the war, launched a fighter sweep against Honshū and later a strike against shipping in Kure Harbor. The Franklin crew had been called to battle stations twelve times within six hours that night and Gehres downgraded the alert status to Condition III, allowing his men freedom to eat or sleep, although gunnery crews remained at their stations. A single Yokosuka D4Y dive bomber approached Franklin without being detected by American forces. As Franklin was about halfway through launching a second wave of strike aircraft, the Japanese dive bomber pierced the cloud cover and dropped two semi-armor-piercing bombs before the ship's anti-aircraft gunners could fire. The damage analysis came to the conclusion that the bombs were 550 pounds (250 kg).[8] Accounts differ as to whether the attacking aircraft escaped or was shot down...At the time she was struck, Franklin had 31 armed and fueled aircraft warming up on her flight deck, and these planes caught fire almost immediately. The 13 to 16 tons of high explosives aboard these planes soon began detonating progressively, and although "Tiny Tim" air-to-surface rockets were loaded aboard Vought F4U Corsairs, their three-point, nose up attitude allowed most of the rockets to fly overboard when their engines ignited.[8] The hangar deck contained planes, of which 16 were fueled and 5 were armed. The forward gasoline system had been secured, but the aft system was operating. The explosion on the hangar deck ignited the fuel tanks on the aircraft, and a gasoline vapor explosion devastated the deck. The twelve "Tiny Tim" rockets aboard these planes ricocheted around the hangar deck until their 138 lb (63 kg) warheads detonated. Only two crewmen survived the fire in the hanger deck. A recent count by Franklin historian and researcher Joseph A. Springer brings total 19 March 1945 casualty figures to 807 killed and more than 487 wounded. Franklin had suffered the most severe damage and highest casualties experienced by any U.S. fleet carrier that survived World War II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Franklin_(CV-13) <Although wounded by one of the explosions after the attack, Chaplain O'Callahan moved about the exposed and slanting flight deck, administering the last rites to the dying, comforting the wounded, and leading officers and crewmen into the flames to carry hot bombs and shells to the edge of the deck for jettisoning. He personally recruited a damage control party and led it into one of the main ammunition magazines to wet it down and prevent its exploding. For this action he received the Navy Cross, which he publicly refused (the only man to do so in World War II). At the time, it was speculated that O'Callahan was offered the Navy Cross in lieu of the Medal of Honor since his heroic actions on USS Franklin highlighted perceived lapses in leadership by the ship's commanding officer, Captain Leslie E. Gehres, which reflected poorly on the Navy. President Harry Truman intervened after the resulting public outcry and the Medal of Honor was awarded to O'Callahan on January 23, 1946. He was the first Naval Chaplain so decorated.