Edward Driscoll was born in January 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the sixth of 13 children. His father was a city fireman, his mother a homemaker. Driscoll went through school in Philadelphia, and wasn't aware of the hardships his parents must have faced during the Great Depression. Driscoll was a newsboy, worked as a Junior Air Raid Warden because it was "something to do…out at night", and joined the Navy before finishing his senior year of high school. He heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] when he came out of a movie theater on the Sunday afternoon of 7 December, and as far as he knew, the current political events had not concerned anyone in his family until then. But his father's sister was married to a career Navy man who was stationed in Pearl Harbor, and the bombings got their attention. The men in the family who joined the armed forces seemed to always choose the Navy, and in October 1942, he followed suit, enlisted, took his physical, and was sworn in. He attended boot camp in Bainbridge, Maryland, and found it "easy." Two of the people in his barracks had a reaction to the inoculations, and the whole group was in quarantine for 30 days, which Driscoll considered an advantage. At Christmastime he went on a five-day leave, then proceeded to Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida for radio school and afterward, to gunnery school in Hollywood, Florida. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida he took operational training and started flying.

In Providence, Rhode Island, Edward Driscoll joined the newly formed Torpedo Squadron 13 [Annotator's Note: Torpedo Squadron 13 (VT-13)]. He flew with various pilots, who chose their crew from among the candidates who were rotating through. Once established, the crews practiced torpedo runs out of Massachusetts and Maine. Driscoll liked the exercises and meeting all types of people. He had learned to use radar, and on one occasion picked up a signal that turned out to be a 55-gallon drum half submerged in the water. Driscoll ended up teaching the other radiomen in the division how to use radar equipment to their advantage. The crew made simulated bombing runs, and gunnery runs during which Driscoll operated a .30 caliber machine gun. After intensive training, the crew coalesced at Oceania, Virginia, and boarded a new ship, the USS Franklin (CV-13), in Norfolk, Virginia. Driscoll's first flight off a ship was on its sea trials to Trinidad and back, after which it left Norfolk for the Panama Canal. The planes took off before the ship entered the Canal in order to lighten the load, then landed once the passage was complete. The Franklin sailed on to San Diego, California, where Driscoll was issued equipment that led him to believe he was headed for the Aleutians [Annotator's Note: Aleutian Islands, Alaska], but halfway to Hawaii, the gear was switched out for summer togs. In Hawaii, the ship was finalized for combat and the flight crews continued training in Maui. When the Franklin left Pearl Harbor with its escort, the crews brought the aircraft back on board.

In early June [Annotator's Note: June 1944] Edward Driscoll's ship [Annotator's Note: USS Franklin (CV-13)] was held in reserve out of Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands], and at the end of the month, he left for Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan], which was bombed on the 4 July. He said that five or six divisions of planes started at about five in the morning and bombed the island for 12 or 13 hours. In all that time, only one American plane was shot down. Rather than using their torpedoes, the aircraft were using bombs on airfields, barracks and gun emplacements. After two days of bombing Iwo Jima, they headed southwest towards Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands], and went after the same targets on that island, airfields first. Then they went up and down the beaches dropping bombs, clearing them for the amphibious invasions. Driscoll said that the pilots were informed about what the targets would be just before leaving on a mission, but the crew rarely knew. In all of the bombings, Driscoll never saw a Japanese plane in the air; the American fighters protected them. On 1 and 2 August, the Torpedo Squadron 13 [Annotator's Note: Torpedo Squadron 13 (VT-13), USS Franklin (CV-13)] went back to Iwo Jima and after a couple of days of bombing there, they hit the island of Yap [Annotator's Note: Yap, Caroline Islands, Federated States of Micronesia]. From there they went into Ulithi Atoll [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Federated States of Micronesia], where the Navy had a lot of supplies, and re-quipped and refueled the ship. When Driscoll was not in the air, he had enemy aircraft recognition training, and every Friday was a day of cleaning. The Navy kept everything "spic and span." General inspections happened on Saturdays. During free time, the men played cards, watched films or wrote letters in the ready rooms, used for briefings before raids, but as living areas when the crew was at rest. Driscoll kept up a steady correspondence with his family and friends, including a girlfriend. He remembered receiving packages from the Salvation Army that included pencils and writing paper, playing cards, and cigarettes. Driscoll thought the food on board the ship was excellent.

On 1 September 1944, Edward Driscoll was involved in the bombing of Chichijima [Annotator's Note: Chichijima, Japan]. Prior to that, the division lost one plane; the pilot bailed out, but two crewmembers were lost. During the 1 September raid, a second of the division's planes was hit, and a submarine rescued the crew. On the next day, George H. W. Bush [Annotator's Note: George Herbert Walker Bush; 41st President of the United States] was shot down; he bailed out and was picked up by the same sub. Driscoll noted that wherever they were going to bomb, the Navy always had a "life guard" on duty. He remembered that their instructions were to always "get to" or "stay in" the water if shot down. The Japanese troops, as well as native headhunters on the islands, would kill anyone they found. Driscoll felt his pilot was well trained, and never worried about having to bail out or thought he wasn't going to make it home. But he did admit that when he saw a plane go down he thought, "Better him than me." On their next mission, Torpedo Squadron 13 [Annotator's Note: Torpedo Squadron 13 (VT-13), USS Franklin (CV-13)] covered the invasion of Peleliu for eight or ten days. Driscoll said the Japanese were very quick to repair bombed out facilities. VT-13 moved on to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan], then to Formosa, and traveled the long length of the island to bomb a radar station at the far end. Driscoll recalled they encountered more flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] on Formosa than anywhere else, and that the explosions would "shake the hell out of the plane." He commented that his plane was never hit, probably because he was in the lead aircraft; it looked like the flak sprays were spaced about two feet apart, and the second and third planes usually took the brunt of the fire. After Formosa, the VT-13 covered three different invasions: Manila, Luzon, and Mindanao [Annotator's Note: all in the Philippines]. They had gone to sea with 48 torpedoes, but had spent them all by the time they left Formosa. Afterwards, they dropped all sorts of bombs: armor piercing, general purpose, and incendiary. And, in the early days they also used a bomb called a "daisy cutter" that not only made a crater, but also sprayed shrapnel over the ground, cutting up the nearby troops. Driscoll said he felt no remorse.

They [Annotator's Note: Edward Driscoll and Torpedo Squadron 13 (VT-13), USS Franklin (CV-13)] left Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] to meet the Japanese fleet. It was the first time they were fighting against the fleet "per se." He had no torpedoes left, and among the bombs they were dropping were "skip bombs" that leapt along the top of the water, and exploded when it hit its target. Driscoll remembers dropping one that danced across the deck of a battleship, and went through its bridge, but didn't explode. During the battle, the American air forces sank carriers "and other stuff," but lost quite a few people. After the last of the Japanese carriers went past, they sank two or three other straggling ships. On 29 October 1944, Driscoll's aircraft left with 20 other planes from the USS Franklin (CV-13) and the USS Enterprise (CV-6) to pick up survivors that had been rescued by the natives. They landed on Leyte for a quick turnaround, conscious of a bad storm brewing, but Driscoll's plane would not restart. He and his pilot left on the lead plane from the Enterprise and landed with them on their carrier to wait for transport back to the Franklin. While they were there, a Kamikaze hit the Franklin, damaging it badly enough that it had to go to Ulithi [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Federated States of Micronesia] for temporary repairs, then Hawaii, which was all jammed up with damaged vessels. The Franklin was brought into Washington for major repairs and Driscoll got a 30 day survivor's leave and went home. The torpedo squadron reorganized at Alameda, California then went to Fallon, Nevada for further training for three months. They then returned to Alameda to board a ship back to the Pacific. As it turned out, there was one crew too many and a coin toss triumph allowed Driscoll to stay in the United States, as part of a CASU [Annotator's Note: Carrier Aircraft Service Unit] unit waiting for reassignment. After two months he was assigned to a bombing squadron and had to go back to Fallon for more training. While he was there, the war ended and he was sent back to the east coast of Maine. He declined the offer to stay in the Navy and was discharged on 5 May 1946.

Edward Driscoll loved President Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States], and was in agreement with his decision to drop the atomic bombs to end the war. The Japanese did not want to give up, and although Driscoll felt sorry for the death and suffering the bombings caused, he felt it saved many more. He held no animosity against the Japanese, and commented that he bought a Japanese car. After his discharge, Driscoll got his high school diploma, but didn't want to go to college. He didn't have any trouble reintegrating into civilian life, and went to a watch repair school on the G.I. Bill, but found no work. He tried several other jobs, and ended up in heating and air conditioning, an occupation he stayed in for 39 years. He spent 17 of those years with Sears Roebuck, and Driscoll was supervising 24 repairmen when he retired. He has three children, one of them a Navy helicopter pilot.

During his service in World War 2, Edward Driscoll enjoyed meeting other types of people from all over the country, and he has kept in touch with many of them through the years. He also thanks the Navy for the opportunity to travel around America, and journeys regularly to go to reunions in different places all over the country. Asked why he served in the Navy, Driscoll responded that he was draft age, and rather than being drafted into the Army, he wanted to have a choice. He regrets that his service in the war "doesn't mean a hell of a lot today," and thinks the world situation is out of control. He thinks America did the right thing going into the war, and believes the country should make people of today who are not otherwise contributing to society go into the military. Asked if he believed we should have institutions such as The National WWII Museum to teach the lessons of the war, Driscoll answered, "yes," but he thinks it is in the wrong place because it is too hard to get to New Orleans, Louisiana. Driscoll praised the efforts of the Honor Flight program for sponsoring trips for people who could not otherwise afford to travel to the museum. He commented on the book "Big Ben, the Flat Top," about the carrier on which he served [Annotator's Note: the USS Franklin (CV-13)]. He felt it was missing information on the warriors who served on the ship, and has put together a book of facts about the individuals he served with in the Pacific.