The Hero Ship
by Hank Searls
New American Library, 1970, 238 pages
The aircraft carrier Shenandoah barely survives
multiple kamikaze attacks off the Japanese coast near Tokyo Bay. Despite death
of the ship's commander and desertion of 93 men and a lieutenant commander from
the burning Shenandoah, the executive officer Ben Casco, now in command,
saves the crippled ship by ignoring direct orders from his task force admiral
to abandon her. Hank Searls, author of 19 novels including the novelizations of
Jaws 2 and Jaws: The Revenge, uses his experiences in the Navy
during World War II to create a realistic wartime setting. The carrier USS Franklin
served as inspiration for this novel. Aboard the battleship Washington,
Searls witnessed a Japanese plane drop two bombs on the carrier, which nearly
sank after raging fires detonated stored ammunition and bombs. Although this
novel contains realistic battle action, the real strength lies in the personal
conflicts between the book's memorable characters.
Ben Casco enlists in the Navy in 1929 without completing
high school, and he serves first on the battleship Nevada, but he soon
leaves to pursue his dream of becoming a Navy pilot. After eight years as an
enlisted pilot including an assignment aboard the carrier Lexington, he
is commissioned as Lieutenant Junior Grade with an assignment in June 1941 to
the new carrier Shenandoah. He fights at Pearl Harbor and Midway, where
his plane finishes off the Japanese carrier Hiryu and earns him
promotion to Lieutenant Commander and head of the Shenandoah's fighter
squadron. The book skips forward three years to the Shenandoah anchored
at Ulithi Atoll, where three huge task forces leave for an attack on Japan late
in the war (probably July 1945 based on book's references to other events).
The main story occurs in 1968 as Ben Casco seeks to stop
Christy Lee from becoming Chief of Naval Operations. More than two decades
earlier, Christy Lee, officer in charge of five-inch guns on the Shenandoah,
never gives orders to fire at an incoming ōka glider bomb as he deserts the
burning carrier to reach safety on a destroyer that has moved alongside the
ship. Ben is the only witness, and Christy lies that he was blown off the ship
by the ōka explosion, so an admiral advises Ben, after his damaged ship limps
back to Pearl Harbor, not to press court-martial charges due to insufficient
evidence.
The author tells the history of the Shenandoah and
Ben Casco in a series of flashbacks. The main flashback takes place during
World War II, but then during this time several other flashbacks occur to key
events that shaped Ben's career and illustrate his character. Although the
author skillfully handles these flashbacks within a flashback, they delay the
flow of events during the last year of the war.
Even though the piloted ōka bomb had almost no success
during World II, this piloted glider makes several successful attacks in the
novel. Mitsubishi Type 1 (Betty) bombers carried the ōka weapon to within
range of enemy ships, and then three rocket engines accelerated the ōka to
over 500 miles per hour. Over 50 ōka pilots and 320 pilots and crewmen of
mother planes lost their lives (Hagoromo 1973, 54), and ōka bombs sank only
one destroyer and damaged seven other ships during the war (O'Neill 1999, 160).
Americans usually referred to them as baka (meaning "fool" in
Japanese) bombs. The first kamikaze to hit the Shenandoah is a Kate
bomber carrying a 250-kg bomb, which explodes between the flight and hangar
decks. As men try to put out fires and rescue the wounded, two ōka bombs hit
the carrier. As the ship starts to sink, two more ōka gliders barely miss the
stricken carrier.
Earlier in the novel as the Shenandoah proceeds from
Ulithi to Tokyo, a kamikaze pilot is rescued after he parachutes from a blazing
Betty mother plane that had just released an ōka that crashed next to the
carrier Lexington. This kamikaze pilot ends up playing a key role in the
novel's plot. Christy Lee panics when the first kamikaze plane hits the Shenandoah,
and he leaves the kamikaze and another soldier locked up in the brig when fire
roars through it. Ben Casco rescues them before he goes up to the flight deck,
and he finds out later that Christy was the person who had abandoned the two
men. The kamikaze pilot gives a deposition regarding Christy's action, which
Ben thinks he will use in a court-martial of Christy in addition the charge of
deserting the ship. However, the admiral convinces him otherwise in Pearl
Harbor, but in 1968 Ben wants to bring up the two charges again as Admiral
Christy Lee plans to appear before a Senate committee to confirm his
appointment as Chief of Naval Operations.
The book reveals nothing about the captured kamikaze pilot's
motivations, but an interpreter provides the leaders of Ben's task force a
briefing on kamikaze weapons and pilots prior to leaving Ulithi for Japan. One
officer asks whether kamikaze pilots are doped or are drunk, and he suggests
fear motivates them. The interpreter explains they have even more kamikaze
volunteers than planes, but he does not provide much insight into what drives
them. In the interpreter's discussion of kamikaze weapons, he focuses
inordinately on the importance of the ōka bomb even though the last ōka
attack in the actual war occurred one month prior to when two ōka bombs hit
the Shenandoah.
The author generally depicts believable characters, but the
actions and temperament of Ben Casco turn out to be implausible at times. Most
aircraft carrier commanders exude composure and confidence, but Ben sometimes
acts so recklessly that it strains belief that he received promotions to
executive officer of an aircraft carrier. Some of the wild stunts earlier in his career include flying
his plane drunk under the Golden Gate Bridge, serving time in the brig for
slugging his chief petty officer, and knocking out a lieutenant who he thought
was the husband of the woman he had slept with the night before. When Ben takes
command of the Shenandoah and disagrees with orders from the task force
admiral to abandon ship, he grabs a gun and starts shooting at the waterline of
a destroyer moving toward the carrier's side to transfer men off the burning
ship. War fiction at its best!
The Hero Ship has an exciting plot with many twists
and turns, including an unexpected ending. While the kamikaze attacks with ōka
glider bombs differ from historical facts, the book's realistic descriptions of
battles, flights, and ships reflect the author's wartime naval service and
pilot experience.
Sources Cited
Hagoromo Society of Kamikaze Divine Thunderbolt Corps
Survivors. 1973. The Cherry Blossom Squadrons: Born to Die. Edited and supplemented by Andrew Adams. Translated by Nobuo
Asahi and the Japan Tech Co. Los Angeles: Ohara Publications.
O'Neill, Richard. 1999. Suicide Squads: The Men and Machines of World War II
Special Operations. Originally published in 1981. London: Salamander Books.
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