Ships
- USS Callaghan (DD-792) Captain from 27 November 1943
Francis Joseph Johnson, recorded in Navy orders as F. J. Johnson, was born in Uvalde, Texas, on 19 February 1907. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1929. He became a lieutenant on 30 June 1937, a temporary lieutenant commander on 15 June 1942, and a temporary commander on 15 October 1942. His wartime sea command was a new Pacific Fleet destroyer.
Callaghan (DD-792) was a Fletcher-class destroyer built by Bethlehem Steel at San Pedro, California, and named for Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, killed while leading a night action off Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942. The ship was launched on 1 August 1943 with the admiral’s widow as sponsor. Johnson took command when she was commissioned on 27 November 1943 and reported to the Pacific Fleet, assigned to Destroyer Division 109 of Destroyer Squadron 55.
Callaghan sailed from the West Coast on 5 February 1944. From 30 March to 1 April she screened Admiral Raymond A. Spruance’s Fifth Fleet in carrier strikes on the Palau Islands, Yap, Ulithi, and Woleai, in company with Laws, Longshaw, Morrison, and Prichett. In April, working from Manus with the squadron flagship Porterfield, she served as a picket during air strikes and guarded oilers supporting the Hollandia landings on the north coast of New Guinea.
From June through August 1944, during the Marianas campaign, Callaghan screened Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan’s escort-carrier group, Task Group 53.14, centered on Midway, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, and Fanshaw Bay. Those carriers covered the assaults on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. On 17 June, east of Saipan, her gunners joined in a heavy Japanese air attack and helped bring down three aircraft. A bomb struck Fanshaw Bay, and Callaghan escorted the damaged carrier to Eniwetok.
Late in the summer of 1944 Johnson’s ship screened carriers striking the Philippines and the Palaus. In mid-October she was with the force that attacked airfields on Formosa and Okinawa. On 14 October, during a strong Japanese air attack, Callaghan helped shoot down several planes. She was still under his command for the Battle of Leyte Gulf later that month, operating with the carriers. He left the ship at the end of October 1944. Callaghan stayed in the western Pacific and was sunk by a kamikaze off Okinawa on 28 July 1945.