Saving Big Ben

"Father Joseph T. Callahan was the first military chaplain to receive the Medal of Honor. An unlikely war hero, the bespectacled math professor from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, became the U.S. Navy's first Jesuit chaplain, and he served in combat in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. He was on board the USS Franklin, an Essex-class aircraft carrier known as "Big Ben", during the Okinawa campaign in early 1945, when massive explosions and fire from two Japanese bombs nearly destroyed the ship. ... As flames consumed the ship, Father O'Callahan organized firefighting crews and ministered to the injured and dying. [His] deeds were instrumental in saving the Franklin, and he stayed with the ship on its voyage back to New York Harbor. ..."--Book jacket.