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To: SaveFerris
An extrordinary book about the accident I highly recommend is "Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It"

I found it to be gripping, and had many first person accounts from that day that are compelling reading. One of the most amazing stories was that of the lower ranking enlisted guy (I think an AME) who was in charge of the huge reservoir of liquid oxygen (LOX) that day, and he got trapped in there due to fire and smoke, with bombs going off above him, and the heat rising to nearly unbearable levels, but...he didn't think he could evacuate the space without being accused of deserting his post or something, so...there he stayed for hours (I don't recall if he finally left or if a damage control team came and found him)

Thing, is, if that liquid oxygen had exploded, it would have likely sunk the ship, nevermind simply blowing him to eternity in a split second.

In the aftermath, realized that if the fire had spread there, that is what would have happened with absolutely nothing they could have done about it. As a result, they redesigned all carriers so that huge LOX tank sat on a set of rails that opened into a giant hatch in the hull through which the entire unit could be shoved overboard as need be in a conflagration. I never knew that...I think I slept right above it somewhere on the carrier I was on!

162 posted on 10/17/2017 11:54:38 AM PDT by rlmorel (Liberals: American Liberty is the egg that requires breaking to make their Utopian omelette.)
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To: rlmorel

Tell ya what, that is some flipping scary stuff.

I was wondering about the sailor and then I realized how quickly the fins flipped over and out on that Zuni. Yikes


164 posted on 10/17/2017 11:59:51 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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