“I’ll Find You a Way Out”: Donald A. Gary and the Fires Aboard USS Franklin

This week in Beyond the Call: Medal of Honor Stories, we follow Lieutenant (junior grade) Donald Arthur Gary, the engineering officer who found hundreds of shipmates trapped deep below decks after a devastating attack off Japan in 1945. With the carrier burning and escape routes cut off, he told them, “I’ll find you a way out,” then kept that promise—leading group after group through a shattered maze of passageways before turning to the brutal work of saving the ship herself.If stories of quiet courage, technical skill under fire, and leadership from the engine rooms of history speak to you, you’ll want to spend time with this feature in Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine, developed by Trackpads.com. Beyond the Call is our weekly look at the people behind the Medal of Honor and the moments when they chose to go back into the fire instead of walking away.