That is my point above: The Forrestal got him off of the ship so fast BECAUSE - as you put it - “everybody in the fleet knew what happened.”
Even if it didn’t happen - the “fleet” knew it happened BECAUSE of McCain’s well-earned, very accurate reputation for DOING that kind of stunt! There was no time and no way to accurately and dispassionately find out what really happened, the flight deck and ship were still burning!
And the Forrestal’s officers and crew knew McCain left the flight deck and sat below decks watching the fire on TV.
The CO (Commander of the Air Wing actually) had to get him off the ship. Immediately. Officially or unofficially. He had to get off that ship or be killed.
I don’t think McCain cared (or even knew) he was being protected. Or maybe he did (having received threats, or having perceived threats), and so McCain got verbal permission to leave for Saigon.
Once in Saigon and having time to think, McCain knew he had to get back to sea, back to a carrier and back over North Vietnam or his reputation WOULD BE forever tarnished by this fourth plane destroyed. THAT was when his “father’s influence” came to be played out once again. Getting McCain back on the Oriskany saved his career - and the his father’s reputation in the Pacific and Europe theaters for his future promotions, and his grandfather’s WWII reputation as a carrier admiral. Those TWO reputations had to be protected lest their name be smeared by McCain’s latest errors in judgement (if not actual cowardice) while his ship was (literally) under fire.
Supposedly when McCain’s commanding officer was notified that McCain had been shot down he commented “ thank God it was McCain because I was running out of aircraft “.
And then, when he did get back in the cockpit and flew his first mission off Oriskanay, he went in crazy determined to make a show of himself, flew too low, and got shot down by AAA
All hs life he claimed it was a SAM- another lie to cover his own bad judgement
Man o man was he a loose cannon
In a different age he would have been deemed at the academy as psychologically unsuitable for flight and for command