Posted on 08/26/2007 1:44:09 PM PDT by Coleus
It was 40 years ago today, in the waters off Vietnam, that the crew of the USS Forrestal saw the gates of hell. A missile accidentally fired from a plane on the flight deck triggered a blazing inferno that would claim the lives of 134 men, two from New Jersey -- Francis Campeau of Bergenfield and Richard Vallone of Bridgewater. Not since World War II had a ship's crew sustained so many casualties.
The Forrestal, the first of the Navy's newest class of super carriers left Norfolk, Va., in June 1967 for what was to be her first combat deployment. Arriving off the coast of Vietnam on July 25, combat operations went into full swing, with the Forrestal's aircraft flying 150 sorties over the next four days.
The Tonkin Gulf was exceptionally hot and the morning of July 29 was no different. Walter Stinner woke at 4:30 a.m., along with the rest of his crew, to prepare the planes for the day's missions, Stinner grew up in Elizabeth's port section. Five days after he graduated high school in June, 1967, he enlisted in the Navy. With the war in Vietnam escalating, he figured he'd rather choose the branch of service he would serve in, than have it chosen for him.
Crews were prepping planes for the second launch of the morning, when shortly before 11 a.m., a Zuni rocket accidentally fired from an F-4 Phantom. It flew across the deck, striking a 400-gallon fuel tank on a parked A-4D Skyhawk -- a plane that was to be flown by Sen. John McCain, then a young pilot.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
I used to be on the USS JFK, and while I never really thought about it much, I had never considered much the implications of being in a shooting war.
One night on the ship, I had this dream. I dreamt I was in a lifejacket, treading water astern of the sinking ship, when the stern settled, and the bow began to come out of the water. It went up, up, up against the black sky lit by the stars, and I could see the black shape of the flight deck hundreds of feet above me as it blotted out the stars.
Slowly, it began to fall...directly down on me. 85,000 tons of ship began to come down right on top of me. Then I woke up. That was a pretty scary nightmare.
I once met a guy who was the ship’s doctor aboard the USS Indianapolis. I spent several hours with him... I shudder to think what kind of nightmares he had.
Note: These were Boomer generation.
A shipboard fire is a real bear - there’s nowhere to run. Fight or die.
It had it's lessons that's for sure. The men on that ship were hero's though. One good thing came from the three tragedies {carrier fires in that era} was the development of the Hi-Cap system. They put them on the flight deck and hanger deck. HI-Caps when activate automatically layed down AFFF Aqueous Film Forming Foam. The later version of it mid 1970's era I think was an improvement also.
The AFFF helped cut down on re-flash. IIRC from the film the main mistake on Forestall involved mis-communication about the foam. They also put a Fire Truck on carriers and the Crash and Salvage crews got fire suits. The only draw back on Hi-Caps was the manual refill. 5 gallon buckets took a while to fill the tank back up and a lot of manpower to get them to the station.
Somebody told me a while back the Navy now uses a version of Scott Air packs. A huge improvement too IMO. The old Chemical OBA's had a bad tendency to konk out and you had to really regulate your breathing. Not an easy task when you run the length of the ship and up several decks then strap one on. The OBA's cannisters were dangerous to dispose of also. One drop of contaminated water and BOOM!
I never knew many who were on Fire Department though who didn't like the job. The Navy changed to a full time onboard Fire Departments on carriers in 1980 or 81. Before that mainly the Snipes from R-Divison handled it at sea and in the yards they set up a temporary fire department on the ship from all departments. I did over 9 months T.A.D. to it.
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The best men of my generation went to Viet Nam if they were asked. The rest do not count.
Do recollect fire fighting training in the big simulators at Norfolk. My mother’s older brother served aboard the old Enterprise from 1939 to 1943, Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands, kamikaze, was flight deck damage control CPO in ‘43, saw many, many flight and hanger deck emergencies. He said that the Franklin took damage rather routine by Enterprise standards (!!!!) but couldn’t control the fire. Whew, I recollect the training films about Franklin.
I remember watching it during basic and several other times during my Navy career. I think that everyone in the Navy called the ship the "USS Forrest Fire"
same here too.... a very sobering movie...meet a guy who was on that ship.. He had been in the navy all of about 6 months at the time...
It wasn't nothing fancy or at least in the late 70's anyway. It was just above the D&S piers maybe a half mile. The training structure wasn't that big about like what was used in the civilian world. IIRC it was one story I think two at the most but I don't remember stairs though. They would send us into it in different conditions including without an OBA so we could know how to survive off the hose if we had to. That trick got me out of a bad place one night. I was one on one and my OBA collapsed.
The most impressive lesson besides Forestall in Fire Fighting School was the grease fire demonstration. They had a pit that they set on fire and the instructor had a pole about 20 feet long with a cup of water on the end of it. A demonstration that showed why you do not use water on a grease fire was given.
When we were in the yards we sometimes got to train at the Yardbirds facility too. I think it was laid out more like a house though. I think I was involved in AMERICA first bad fire of any size. It was in a storeroom aft on the Hanger Bay. Another A-gang guy and myself were T.A.D. to Fire Department and discovered it. It had been going for a while. The heat transfer went up on the 02 level. No one got hurt but it took a while to put it out. The Barber Shop on the 02 level was destroyed due to water damage the 02 level also had a JP-5 day tank we were very concerned about and kept it cooled. The Barber shop deck was so hot I saw the floor tiles buckling.
My wife has COPD (breathing problem) and carries a neat little flask of LOX slung over her shoulder whenever we go out. Also from time to time we drive around with a tank of about 50 pounds of the stuff in the back of our pickup. No HAZMAT placards of any kind anywhere. This system is far more convenient for the patient than having to use the old heavy tanks, but for someone aware of what LOX can do it does seem a bit scary, especially out in freeway traffic. Just yesterday afternoon I saw some upscale import, Lexus or the like, completely destroyed up to the rear axle, with two fire trucks standing by. Glad it wasn’t our truck.
My father was on the Constellation for, I think, two fires. He didn’t like to talk about it much.
...Boomer generation
>>
Yes, I know. And, as a boomer, I remember this incident, but I do nor recall seeing such a detailed description of it when it occurred.
You have more fire fighting experience than I. Never had to deal with anything uncontrolled.
It has been some time, but if I recollect at Norfolk there was a two story concrete structure with a little bitty stairway entrance room on the roof. This was used for OBA demonstration. The fires in the simulator were minor, you could see a battle lantern held up to your facepiece. I suppose they were looking for claustrophobia freak outs. Could easily have somebody stuck in there if the fire was too intense.
The hot fires were run in a single story structure (maybe two) with the fires let run longer and longer as the two day school went on. I recall running a lot with charged 2 1/2” hoses. That nozzle work is team work, for a fact.
Only had my last 16 months aboard ship, the rest of my time was “brown water” or mud, mostly. Certainly rear echelon enough, here I am.
Looking back I think that those Fleet guys thought I was a bit crazy. Mostly I was just tired.
I went back to Norfolk a few years ago and Oceanview as it once stood was gone even the apartments up on the curve. It looked like somebody had ran a dozer from one end to the other. I found my old apartment the only one still standing across from where Best Western was.
Outside the Main Gate on the pier side of the base was several miles of fast food and businesses. I managed to drive by memory the roads from the main gate towards town across to Military Hi-way, to Little Creek Road and to Oceanview. I used to walk it LOL. Heck me and some friends used to walk to the mall on Military Hi-way from the ship.
A bit Crazy was a good way to survive it all. I was one of the crazies myself. I used to growl and bark at my First Class LOL. He was crazier than I was but one great man to work for.
Oxygen Breathing Apparatus, it allows you to re breathe your own air. This is done with a canister that oxygen is generated as you breathe through it.
“Believe it or not, my older sister thought, until it came up in a conversation a few years back, the the expression was “keyhole” rather than “keel-haul”.”
Funny how people hear different things. Until a couple of years ago my teenage son thought “going to Hell in a hand basket” was “Going to Hell in a ham basket”. Said he thought it was a Jewish expression.
And then there was the USS Ben Franklin, a most incredible story of “A Ship That Wouldn’t Die”.
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