Ghost Carrier: They Died to Fight Another Day Read online

  “Well, that sounds fine. I guess everything I tell you stays in this room.”

  “Absolutely. You can speak with complete freedom here.”

  For the first time since entering the office, Frank relaxed. This little man seemed harmless enough.

  “Now the way I like to start is to get right to the heart of the issue. I have gotten the report from Dr. Garret.”

  He picked up a clipboard from his desk and glanced down.

  “I understand you are seeing visions. Why don’t you start by telling me what you think they are?”

  “I don’t know what they are.”

  “Oh, I think you do know, Mr. Rusk.”

  Frank looked at Parveen oddly and his voice rose, “ No, Doc, I don’t. If I knew what they were, I’d tell you. Anyway aren’t you supposed to tell me?”

  “That’s not the way it works.” Parveen responded gently.

  Frank rose to his feet, “Can I walk around?”

  “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

  Frank struggled, “You’re right, Doc. I do know. God, I know it without a doubt in my mind.”

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I think I’m seeing my Dad’s last moments on earth—the time right before he died. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that’s what I’m seeing.”

  “How did your father die?”

  “He was a sailor on board an aircraft carrier called Liscome Bay.”

  “During World War II?”

  “Yes. I was born in September ’43. He was already out to sea. He died just before Thanksgiving that year. I never got a chance to know him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Worst carrier disaster in the Pacific. They were off the coast of some small island in the Central Pacific, and the ship got hit by a Japanese torpedo that went straight into the bomb bay.

  “I am sorry.”

  “Thanks. Apparently, it was quick. The ship torched up like a dried out Christmas tree. The guys had no chance. It went down in twenty minutes. Close to 650 men died, including my Dad.”

  Dr. Parveen nodded sympathetically.

  “And now, for some God forsaken reason, I’m reliving his last moments every night when my head hits the pillow. Doc, can you find a way to make this stop? Growing up without him was bad enough. Seeing him die over and over…,” Frank’s voice trailed off as he slumped back into his chair.

  Parveen took his pen and held it to his mouth, clicking it a couple of times.

  “So it is not an incident in your own life that is causing these sleepless nights, but seeing the death or imagining the death of your father.”

  “Oh, I’m not imagining it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m there, I’m seeing it through his eyes. I’m feeling what he was feeling. Every detail. How could I imagine all that?”

  “The mind is very complex. We understand only a fraction of its power.”

  “And how about my seeing his face in the candle flames of my birthday cake?”

  “You saw your father’s face in a cake?”

  “In the flames. I know, I know. It sounds nuts. But I saw him.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Not like I remember him from my mother’s old pictures.”

  “How so?”

  “He looked young, but he stared right into my eyes and had the deepest God awful fear I’ve ever seen on a man’s face. Like he was scared shitless. And then he opened his mouth and screamed at me.”

  “Screamed? Screamed what?”

  “My name.”

  Chapter 3

  MAKIN ISLAND, CENTRAL PACIFIC 23 NOV 1943

  Task Force 52 was just coming off intensive aerial bombardment of the Atoll of Tarawa three days earlier. After brutal fighting, Americans soldiers had successfully captured the Gilbert Islands, and now the battle group was returning to normal cruising maneuvers. At sundown on 23 November, the ships of the now precisely named Task Group 52.13 had maneuvered into night cruising disposition, forming a circular screen around the three escort carriers.

  Liscome Bay was in the middle as guide for the surrounding ships. The battleships New Mexico and Mississippi, the cruiser Baltimore on the left flank, and carriers Coral Sea and Corregidor on the right flank were in the first circle surrounding Liscome Bay. The outer circle was formed by the destroyers Hoel, Franks, Hughes, Maury, and Hull.

  Liscome had ordered up large quantities of frozen turkey at Pearl and the ship’s mess was busy preparing the Thanksgiving feast to be served in just two days.

  At 2230 hours Joe Rusk lay awake in A-1 bunk on crew berth level five, deep within the bowels of the Liscome. The coming Thanksgiving holiday had returned his thoughts to home as he held a flashlight illuminating the picture Franny had sent of their new son, little Frankie. He was a tiny thing, but Joe felt an instant connection. He imagined watching him grow up. Teaching him how to play ball. Protecting him and helping him become a man. Joe allowed himself to dream. Even he, a mere Seaman First Class, knew the tone of war with Japan had swung. America was now finally on the offensive in the Pacific, and the strategy seemed to be working. He could feel the end of the war coming as he peered down again at the future. His boy. His boy. Joe liked the sound of that as he stowed the picture away on the small aluminum shelf above his bunk. He sighed and turned over to sleep.

  0505 Hours

  Joe had been up ten minutes. Reveille had sounded twenty minutes earlier. He was just finishing dressing when General Quarters sounded.

  “General Quarters. General Quarters. This is not a drill! All hands man your battle stations!”

  The urgent voice echoed down the ship’s corridors.

  Men leapt from their bunks and began pulling on shirts and dungarees.

  Joe was already scrambling up the ladder from deck five. He was headed two levels up and back toward the hanger deck where he served as a parachute rigger. His body pumped with adrenalin.

  0513 Hours

  The passageways were crowded as sailors raced in every direction, each assigned to a specific task. Joe was nearly to the hatch of the hanger deck when he was thrown backwards by a violent concussive force. A tremendous blast had erupted from several decks below toward the bow of the ship. Unhurt, Joe picked himself up as emergency lights illuminated the passageways. He heard the roar of multiple explosions below him. Jesus Christ! The bomb bay.

  General Quarters no longer sounded. It was replaced by men’s screams. Joe turned and moved toward the front of the ship, but the passage was blocked. Hundreds of men were yelling, “We’re going down! We’re going down!”

  Joe’s only thought, shared by hundreds of other sailors, was to get topside. But he could barely move. He remembered an airshaft near where he was trapped. He turned back and worked his way in that direction. Then he heard men shrieking in pain as he hit a wall of intense heat. He saw a man climbing a steel ladder that was glowing hot. He saw others following, shoeless, and as their bare feet hit the steps, they cried out in agony. As Joe looked at their hands, a sickening smell registered. Burning flesh. Searing heat from the rails burned men’s fingers as if they were gripping a red-hot charcoal grill. The sailors didn’t stop though. They continued to climb and scream. He had to find another way out.

  He turned back toward the front of the ship. The way was partially clear until he hit a thick wall of oily, acrid, pitch-black smoke. He heard men ahead of him crying out, “We’re gonna die! We’re all gonna die!” and he knew they were right.

  The men on the surrounding task force ships could not believe the horror that was unfolding before their eyes as they crowded topside rails. Fifteen hundred yards away from the Liscome, sailors on the New Mexico were sent scattering as oil particles, burning pieces of the deck, molten metal, and bits of clothing and human flesh showered their deck. The flames from Liscome Bay were so intense they lit up the sea around the task group. They heard later that the flames were seen by the battleshi
p Pennsylvania 16 miles away near Makin Atoll. Men stared in disbelief. There was nothing they could do.

  Sailors from the destroyer Maury, just 5,000 yards astern, could see men jumping overboard. Many right into flaming oil slicks floating on the ocean surface. Suddenly they saw the Liscome list down to stern as the bow rose out of the water burning furiously, sending sparks and flaming debris skyward. Then they heard Liscome’s death gurgle. The ship went down quietly with only a loud hissing sound as hot iron hit the cooler sea. A cloud of steam obliterated the view as the Liscome sank beneath Pacific waves. It was over in little more than twenty horrifying minutes.

  “She’s gone!” someone shouted, “She’s gone!” Some men were crying, slowly turning away. Some stood frozen staring at where the ship had been. Others hugged each other. Hundreds of crewmen had friends on the Liscome Bay, and they had just watched their buddies die.

  There were scattered small oil slicks still burning. There were a few life rafts out picking up pale, shivering survivors, hauling them in from the forty-five degree water. One sailor, Aerographer John Sidy, was standing on the Maury just 5,000 yards astern. He squinted at the horizon. It was just past 0530 hours and the dim November sun was brightening the skies in the east. Something faint, however, seemed to be obscuring the horizon line. It was a shape. A translucent shape of something Sidy could not quite make out. He shook his head, closed his eyes, then opened them again, staring hard. Movement he caught from the corner of his eye caused him to shift his gaze. He caught sight of other men down to his right at the edge of the deck pointing in the direction of the horizon and waving other men over. Sailors crowded the rails and appeared to be looking at something.

  Sidy whipped his eyes back to the horizon. There was no mistaking it this time. Floating on the horizon was the outline of a ship, a Casablanca-Class American Aircraft Carrier, the Liscome Bay.

  Chapter 4

  USS LISCOME BAY

  MAKIN ISLAND, CENTRAL PACIFIC 23 NOV 1943

  0505 Hours

  Joe Rusk jolted awake in his bunk to the PA echoing down the steel corridors of the Carrier. “General Quarters. General Quarters. This is not a drill. All hands man your battle stations!”

  “What the hell?”

  His buddies Lonny Cartwright and Sam Fine in the two bunks below him were already up. Lonny was at his locker pulling on a shirt. Sam stared at Joe in frozen silence.

  Joe momentarily stared back.

  “Guys, you comin’? We gotta go!” Lonny shouted to them.

  “Yeah, we’re coming.” Then Joe slid out of his top bunk.

  Sam remained silent and Joe saw he was trembling slightly.

  “We’re coming, we’re coming!” Joe shouted to Lonny.

  Lonny shook his head in disgust and headed out the cabin door.

  Joe pulled on his dungarees as Sam spoke, “Joe, we were hit. We went down.”

  “Sam, I know. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but we gotta get topside.”

  He took Sam by the shoulder, and they headed up the steel ladder with a few other men to the flight deck. Other sailors were hurrying to their stations with uncertain, fearful faces.

  Joe’s group was met by Petty Officer Ronald Dawkins as they emerged on the flight deck.

  “You men get to your battle stations! Right now!” he shouted.

  “What’s going on?” Joe shouted back.

  “The New Mexico’s been hit by a Jap torpedo,” pointing his finger in the direction of the crippled battleship off the port bow.

  Joe and the sailors who had followed him turned and saw the listing ship 1500 yards away engulfed in flames. A third of its stern was already under water as sailors scrambled to jump overboard.

  Joe’s eyes filled with horror, “No, no, that can’t be. That can’t be!”

  “Now get to your damn battle stations before I put you all on report!” Dawkins screamed.

  The sailors quickly moved to the hatch and descended the ladder.

  “Joe, we were hit! We went down!” Joe’s friend Al Cunningham said leaning close in to him.

  “I know, I know, Al,” as he motioned him to keep his voice down.

  “I gotta figure this out. What the hell is going on?”

  “Joe, I mean I hate to say it, but we’re all dead.”

  The two stopped at the bottom of the stairs and let the other sailors heading to their battle stations slide past. One of the passing young sailors stopped and looked back with reddening eyes. “I was near the bridge topside. Part of the radio antenna fell on me. I couldn’t move. I watched myself burn to death.” Then the sailor turned and headed down the passageway.

  “Al, don’t say anything to anybody. I know we got hit. I know we went down and you know we went down, but I don’t think everybody on this ship knows,” pointing up toward the flight deck and the Petty Officer they had just encountered. “Get to your station. I’ll meet up with you later.”

  Al turned and ran down the passageway.

  Joe ran back to his berth to put on a shirt over his T-shirt.

  He entered the vacant cabin, grabbed a shirt out of his green steel locker and started for the door. But then he stopped and headed to his bunk. He reached up to the small shelf just above his bed and felt for his son’s picture. His fingers could not find it. He crawled up into the bunk and ran his hand along the shelf then pulled up the mattress. Then he pulled back the covers. Nothing.

  He jumped down to the second bunk thinking the photo had slid down. He pulled back the covers on the lower bunk. Looked down the side. Nothing.

  He hopped down to the bottom bunk pulled off the sheets and even looked under the bunk itself, still nothing.

  His son’s photo had completely vanished.

  Joe made his way to the hanger deck to perform his battle station duties. He went about his work silently. He saw several agitated, red-faced men talking in pairs. He knew what they were discussing.

  Just after 0930 hours, he returned to his cabin. Lonny was already there, playing a game of solitaire on his bunk.

  “Can’t figure it out. I got back here and my bunk was all messed up. Yours too, Joe.”

  Joe winced, “Sorry, that was me, Lonny. I was looking for something.”

  “Well, you should have put it back right.”

  Joe held out both hands calming him, “Whoa, whoa, fella, relax. Won’t happen again.” Then Joe moved to his locker and began to take off his sweaty shirt. As he did he felt Lonny’s eyes follow him.

  “So what were you lookin’ for? Maybe I seen it.”

  Joe turned back to him as he pulled his arm out of a sleeve, “Oh, just that picture of my son. I had it last night.”

  Lonny frowned at Joe. “What picture of your son?”

  “You know the one that Franny sent a couple weeks ago. The one I stare at just about every night. You’ve seen it.”

  Lonny shook his head slowly side to side. “Joe, I never seen nothing. You don’t have a son.”

  “What do you mean I don’t have a son?” Joe said alarmed. “He was born two months ago. His picture’s gotta be around here someplace,” Joe said looking around, “and I’m going to find it.”

  “You’re completely off your rocker, Rusk. You ain’t even married. Don’t you remember you told me that when we brought those girls back to the base at San Diego right before we shipped out? You said it was our going away party.”

  “What girls?”

  “I don’t remember their names, but I do remember you was pretty angry. You wanted the blond and I snagged her first.”

  Joe stood open-mouth staring at Lonny.

  “And besides you ain’t never worn no wedding ring.”

  “What you mean?” Joe raised his left hand, “I never take it…off.” His voice trailing away as he examined his unadorned ring finger.

  “Com’on, Joe, are you sick or something? You’re scaring me.”

  Chapter 5

  FRANK AND KATE’S HOUSE

  “Katie, I’ve
had it. Had it! I’m done with the sessions.” Frank got up from the dinner table and headed toward the living room.

  Katie followed, “You haven’t even given it a chance.”

  “Five weeks? Five weeks isn’t giving it a chance?”

  Katie frowned.

  “Every week it’s the same old ‘Why do you think this is happening, Frank? And why do you feel so abandoned by your father, Frank’ He’s the psychiatrist He’s supposed to tell me! And I don’t feel abandoned. I tell you, Katie, I should have gone into psychology. It’s a complete crock of horseshit that makes people a lot of money.”

  “Oh, Frank.”

  “No, I mean it. I’m done. And a lighter wallet is all I’ve got to show for it.”

  Frank dropped on the couch picked up the remote clicked on ESPN’s Sportscenter and settled back.

  “So that’s what you’re going to do. Sit there and watch sports?”

  “It’s therapeutic.”

  “And tonight you’re going to wake up again in cold sweats screaming.”

  “What do you want me to do? Therapy didn’t help.”

  “I want you – I want us to get some help. This hasn’t been easy on me either you know.”

  “What? What do you want me to do? Tell me. I’ll do anything.”

  Katie looked down, gathering her courage, “Frank, you think you’re seeing what happened to your Dad on that ship, right?”

  “I know I’m seeing what happened to my Dad on that ship.”

  “All right, you know. Well, there’s a way you can contact him. We could find a psychic. Maybe he’s trying to send you a message from the other side.”

  Frank put down the remote and looked up at Katie, ready to shoot down her idea. Then the vision of his father in the flames of the cake candles, screaming his name, entered his mind.

  Frank stared at Katie a moment then looked past her into the distance without saying a word.