Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "USS Franklin - Surviving a Comet Strike" video.

When the Franklin went to the breakers, in the 60s, one of the US TV networks produced a documentary about it. Besides the archival footage, the show had several members of the crew from that day, talking about what they were doing and how they survived.
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@davidb6576 the one from the 60s, is "USS Ben Franklin; The Ship That Wouldn't Die". There are others about Franklin, and there are films about Laffey with similar names.
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@alantoon5708 the "Honor Restored" that I find on YT was made in 2011, with the survivors of the crew talking in studio. The film from the 60s was shot when Franklin was in the breaker's yard, with the crewmen on the ship retracing their steps and actions the day of the attack.
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@TheJudge2017 Essex class ships found work through the 50s and 60s. Some became specialized ASW carriers. Some became helo carriers, predecessors to the purpose built LPH of the 60s. The "ultimate Essex" may have only been an exercise to see what could be done with them, like the "Tillman battleships" of the WWI era. There is always an itch to see an asset in hand, and try to do something with it, like the WWI vintage twin 15" turrets that spawned HMS Vanguard, or the incomplete Lexington class battlecruisers, that were converted to carriers that were very wasteful of the one asset in short supply: carrier tonnage quota. A year or so back, I looked into the eye-popping cost overruns on the Lexingtons, which ended up costing far more than the early projections that were sold to Congress, or the cost of new, purpose built, carriers, but those hulls were sitting there, so there was a temptation to try to use them.
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