McCain Forrestal incident (vanity)

BB II

[robowombat]

Thank you for posting this link. It contains information that I have never read and it is truly both explosive and damning in what it infers about John M. It appears that John M was given a very free ride by the press since his days as a Navy officer. Why? Because his father was CincPac and it was good copy? Or is something else at work. Certain people, think Bill Clinton and BHO seem mysteriously to ride a magic carpet to the top. Wires are pulled, opportunities appear, John M gets to plant his version of his POW experience very early on after returning in a very long article in a national news magazine. This guarantees shortened versions of his account will appear in hundreds of newspapers across the country. The supposed authoritative unofficial account of the Forestall incident makes a point to whitewash McCain. The official investigation of the events is gamed by the CNO, a close family friend.
At the very least John M comes across as gutless, opportunistic and morally and ethically challenged in this account. Thanks again for posting this link.

[centurion316]

I suspect that you have no idea what you are talking about. Please enlighten me.

[Basket_of_Deplorables]

McCain’s plane was NOT hit. It was a lie told by McCain.

From the link above:

“The fire started at 10:51 a.m. Saturday, July 29, 1967, as 30-year-old Lt. Cmdr. John McCain sat on the port side of the Forrestal in his A-4 Skyhawk going through preflight checks. To his right was Lt. Cmdr. Fred White, also in an A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft. A Zuni rocket on another airplane accidentally fired and flew across the flight deck, passing through White’s auxiliary fuel tank and falling into the ocean. Fuel spilled onto the deck from White’s craft and ignited. McCain told his biographer, Robert Timberg, and repeats in his own book, “Faith of My Fathers,” that the rocket hit his own plane and knocked two bombs from it into the burning fuel as he scrambled out of his cockpit and raced to safety across the deck.1

There was, in fact, a single bomb — not two — that dropped to the deck. It exploded 90 seconds after the fire broke out, intensifying the blaze until it raged out of control. White and Thomas Ott, McCain’s parachute rigger, were among the first to be killed instantly or mortally injured, along with most of the firefighting crew. McCain’s plane captain, Robert Zwerlein, was one of those who suffered fatal wounds at this point.

A camera on the deck recorded images showing that the Zuni rocket struck White’s plane. The Navy report later attributed the dropped bomb to White’s plane, although the film footage does not seem to establish this definitively. However, McCain has said many times that the Zuni rocket caused the bomb (two bombs in McCain’s version) to fall from his own craft.”

A camera caught the rocket hitting White’s plane, not songbird’s. A camera.

[Robert DeLong]

Whatever the circumstances of the fire’s origins, McCain did not stay on deck to help fight the blaze as the men around him did. With the firefighting crew virtually wiped out, men untrained in fighting fires had to pick up the fire hoses, rescue the wounded or frantically throw bombs and even planes over the ship’s side to prevent further tragedy. McCain left them behind and went down to the hangar-bay level, where he briefly helped crew members heave some bombs overboard. After that, he went to the pilot’s ready room and watched the fire on a television monitor hooked to a camera trained on the deck.

SOURCE

[Maris Crane]

There was a lengthy publication on FR just the other day.

I took a copy. If you are interested, let me know, but I have no idea how to post such a thing.

[silverleaf]

The Zuni missile did not strike McCains aircraft and any report that says so is not credible

The missile hit A-4 tail number 405 piloted by LCDR Fred White ( RIP)

Why is this important enough that McCain lied about it until his death even though facts were in the accident report?

Because a direct Zuni missile hit on his plane is/ was required to carry forward the story of why McCains bombs dropped onto the deck

Bombs that killed almost every trained firefighter on the carrier. Bombs that set off a cascading catastrophe killing 50 men sleeping below deck.
McCain admits the bombs dropped from his aircraft. The accident report
tap dances around which aircraft dropped those bombs. Why.

Those bombs killed men all around McCain, his squadron mate Fred White who managed to get put of the cockpit only to be killed by bomb blasts, heroic men like McCains rigger who were trying to fight fire and get pilots out of their aircraft...including McCain who escaped uninjured. Men whose names McCain would never acknowledge or mention in any of his memoirs or interviews.
Another indicator of something very very wrong with McCain.
Guilt.

[silverleaf]

NO NAVAL OFFICER WOULD LEAVE HIS BURNING SHIP AND CREWMATES BEHIND TO CONTAIN DAMAGE and RESTORE ORDER

and head for “ R&R” in Saigon the day after such an event

NONE

That is not how military members are wired

Whatever happened - John McCain ran away from it
Fact

[cynwoody]

Here was the deck configuration when the incident occurred:

The incident began when, due to an electrical malfunction when the plane switched to internal electric power, #110 fired a Zuni air-to-air missile across the deck, striking #405, piercing a fuel tank and starting a fire. The Zuni's warhead did not detonate, the pilot not yet having armed it. McCain scrambled out of #416, crawled forward along his refueling boom, and dropped to the deck, escaping the rapidly growing fire. The pilot of #405 was not so lucky.

Note that McCain's exhaust was pointed out over the water. Therefore, all tales of the disaster having been caused by McCain wet-starting his engine are fake news.

It did not help that the Forrestal's bombs were WW2-vintage and had deteriorated, making them prone to cook off earlier than would have been the case for fresh ordnance.

You can view an 85-minute documentary on the disaster here.

[Maris Crane]

Thank you, silverleaf.

I also think that was the worst thing he could do, since there is some ambiguity about how the bomb was released.
But I think the fact that he ran away and then left the ship is unanimous.

[Bell Bouy II]

May be the mind set of an “O” in regard to the enlisted man

[Fiddlstix]

Bookmark

[Bell Bouy II]

I watched the NAVAIR version at NAS Jax when I was a “Yout”.
It was film about firefighting on board an AC Carrier.

McCain wasnt shit back then and never mentioned

[Bell Bouy II]

Thanks for all the input.

Great links and info.

Happy Labor Day

[pfflier]

One book that is detailed is Sailors to the End Authored by Gregory A Freeman.

It said outright that the Zuni rocket was from an F-4 across the deck hitting a fuel tank in the ready A-4s.

McCain was armed with very old 500 lb bombs (WWII vintage bought back from the Philippine military) that would not have met contemporary safety standards. Dropped or not, their cookoff time was very short.

The official accident report cited a weapons system safety violation by the deck ordnance crews where they connected the pylon connectors prior to spotting the F-4 to the deck location specified by SOPs. The connection allowed a transient voltage to fire the Zuni.

If armed on the catapault just before launch as specified in the procedures, the Zuni would have had clear way down the deck and into the sea.

There is absolutely no credence to the "wet start" scenario that conspirators love to talk about.

[silverleaf]

I doubt that will ever happen “ for the good of the nation”
But I would bet good money McCain was told privately at the highest levels that he would NEVER be buried in Arlington

There is a special section there for victims of the Forrestal tragedy

What I would like to see Trump do ... submit the name of Chief Gerald W. Ferrier for the MOH. Read up on the man and it seems to me he was screwed out of being recognized for his heroism for political reasons.

[robowombat]

It did not help that the Forestalls bombs were WW2-vintage and had deteriorated, making them prone to cook off earlier than would have been the case for fresh ordnance.

Compliments of Robert S McNamara who, in his micromanaging and arrogant way, insisted on increasing the number of 1000lb bombs to be used in the mix of ordnance. Unfortunately earlier Robert Strange ‘efficiencies’ had reduced the Navy ordnance purchase so the only rapidly available stock of 1000lb bombs were at a USN ordnance facility in the Philippines, where they had been stored in a simple bunker for storage for possibly as much as a decade or more. Ordnancemen on carriers remarked on the rusty, dirty, deteriorated condition of these bombs and were told to shut up and use them.

[amigatec]

According to a former Navy Sailor I used to work with, the reason the missile fired was because the person who mounted the missile on the aircraft didn't check to make sure the fire switch was in the off position first.

His job in the Navy was to load bombs and missiles on aircraft on the flight deck.

I still doubt this as the real cause, because i believe as soon as the wiring was attached to the missile it should have fired.

[TigersEye]

About "Wet Starts"

[Osage Orange]

Hehehe...yeah..that’s how it goes................

[John S Mosby]

Silver Leaf has posted a link in a post on this thread above this one, to a far more researched and sourced article from Truth Dig, well worth the read.

In this article the “Shipmates Together” written by someone named Freeman, contains no quotes from McCain, however McCain wrote a glowing blurb on the cover praising the book. It’s clear “Shipmates Together” has a substantial probability to have been a gloss over account. Freeman is still alive and the article mentions he will not divulge sources (nowadays that translates as .. made it up or 3rd hand stories).

Glad that you detest J. McCain for many good reasons— but it is clear that he misrepresented his actions after the rocket came across the deck and hid Lt. Cmdr. White’s auxiliary fuel tank, spilling fuel on the deck and continuing overboard in to the ocean. The Zuni had not been armed, but was ignited by a power surge from the deck electrical connections— acc. to the US Navy Report. There was no “wet start”—to cause another plane’s rocket to fire off— the planes each had their own external power source- not connected to each other. So in that sense, McCain didn’t cause the rocket firing— he could not have.

Read the link to the TruthDig article Silver Leaf has posted. It is appalling, his leaving the ship 30 hours after the incident, with the fires still going on, and flying to Saigon with an obvious see-eye A plant reporter for the NYSlimes (Saigon Bureau Chief) for some “R&R” (McCain’s quote from his own book— utterly ridiculous and AWOL from the ship. His daddy got Admiral Moorer to back “Ok” the transit from the Forrestal when NONE of his fellow pilots, dead or alive.... were allowed to.

More reasons to detest this brat for life mean bastard, with zero leadership skills.