The Navy made a documentary of the fire. Required viewing at Damage Control School and Surface Warfare Officer’s School. Hell on Earth is correct.
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He also told me that were it not for nearby Oriskany (which had also experienced a bad fire) deserves credit for saving the Forrestall, because she immediately launched helicopters full of OBA's and dropped them to the deck of Forrestall for the men manning the hoses. My friend spent two days holding a hose.
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Biggest threat to a ship is fire. Ask the Brits after the Falklands
The US Navy Firefughting Schools have been using film of the Forrestal fire for decades, to show how not to fight a major conflagration like that.
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Yet another reason I’m glad I went Army and not Navy. My Dad is a Navy Man and an avid sailor (still into his 70’s) but I’m terrified of being stuck in the middle of an ocean with my “home” sinking beneath me.
I’m a ‘Land Lubber.’ I must get that from Dear Old Mom. ;)
After I came back from boot camp, I gave a presentation on boot camp to the recruits who hadn’t gone yet. I told them about all the rules. I told them there were rules about how the boots had to be laced and how you hung your towel and how you had to put the pillowcase on the pillow and a hundred other things.
“Why so many rules?” asked one angry young recruit. “None of them make any sense!”
I then said “it all seemed silly to me too, until about the fourth day when they showed us the film on the Forrestal. It was the most depressing film I had ever seen. Those weren’t actors getting killed. The sailors on the Forrestal were brave and honorable, but a few sailors made some key errors that got people killed. At that moment, I suddenly realized why they were spending so much time teaching us to pay attention to detail.”
The recruit had no more questions.
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.
And then there was the USS Ben Franklin, a most incredible story of “A Ship That Wouldn’t Die”.
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