My promised article concerning McCain and the USS Forrestal(CV-59) Fire

23 July 2015 | US Navy Vet

[US Navy Vet]

I will not use Wikipedia as some people have BUTTHURT with Wiki. This is what is will use: http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/cv-59/59f-0729.htm

[Radix]

I was not in the Navy and I do not know how to fly an airplane.

On the other hand, I read a bit and I watch people.

McCain is unquestionably a dysfunctional human being and he has deep rooted, long standing personality issues. He is a freaking nut job. .

Almost certainly, none of the Posters on this 2 year old thread were aboard the Forestall when the 131+ died because of an accident.

They were not there, nor were you or I. Regarding half century old images or reading reports which ultimately were funneled through the Chain of Command where McCain had influence and supporters is not exactly cause for dismissing the possibility that the current Senator was the catalyst for this nightmare episode.

Personally, I lean towards that he was absolutely responsible for all of it.

He got out of Dodge rather quick once the flames were dowsed. What innocent person does that?

McCain has demonstrated that he is one seriously treacherous self indulgent POS, but in the interest of fairness, he may be falsely accused.

FR protocol causes me to refrain from colorful language out here, but I say this, I know people, and McCain is a Sociopath.

This impossibly huge Ass has just condemned my children and theirs to a system that will most certainly not serve them well even as he procures care simultaneously that is going to be denied soon to virtually all of us.

I totally believe the testimony of men who saw this asshole up close while he was under stress and even void of stress.

They can talk their Navy expertise for the next several years.

Consider the man himself and the truth will become obvious.

Colorful language here withheld.

[rlmorel]

Radix, if you buy into it, you don’t know what you are talking about.

Period.

[rlmorel]

I am curious though, Radix.

Which part of a diagram or report do you think was falsified that if truthful, would have incriminated McCain? (And in what manner do you think it was falsified?)

By the way, we do have a member on Free Republic who sees these threads (though he doesn’t jump in them often that I have seen) who was on the USS Forrestal that day. I can imagine he has his reasons for not jumping in, and I am not going to name him unless he has something to say. He knows more of the truth than any of us do, but suffice to say he doesn’t feel there was a coverup, and he feels it quite strongly.

[Radix]

I freely acknowledge that you know a lot more about Carrier operations than I ever will, but your conclusions are from here based on information undoubtedly filtered by friends of McCain.

OK, we all operate and draw conclusions based on information provided by somebody somewhere.

Behold the man and consider his more recent behavior. Is he a leopard with new spots?

He is not our friend. He is just some guy with a story embraced by many, rebuked by some.

The notion that every negative point reported about the 50 years ago McCain is a lie is probably of the same stuff that a lot of History is made of.

I think that he is slime and have thought so for many years.

You want to defend this guy and accept the ‘official’ reports that got the almost renegade son of an Admiral out of a serious fix, then you are entitled.

[Sontagged]

Staged and fake footage that proves McCain's version of the story? LOL.

Reminds me of the WWII pilot who said he saw George H W Bush as he exited his plane and that later, all his buddies thought for certain Bush would get court martialed:

https://whowhatwhy.org/2014/09/02/an-enduring-mystery-about-bush-41s-wwii-escape-from-death/

These elites need good bios as "war heroes" for future political gamesmanship.

“Zuni 5 Inch Rocket(See the Flight Deck spot Drawing(with chronology) from F-4B Aircraft Number 110 fired and went across the Flight Deck Striking and Detonating A-4E Number 405”...

knarf, thanks for your service. I’ve a Forrestal class centurion, also served as a carrier safety officer, also a flight deck shooter.

I wasn’t there... many have doubts (of course nothing personal).

My problem... why is the TRIAL BY FIRE training video about the Forrest Fire complete with great video.... except for the actual ZUNI shot?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6NnfRT_OZA

Everyone go to 3:10 and watch until about 3:45.

At 3:22, the training tape narrator says, “There it is...Zuni shot...”

But the problem is that there is a 1/2 second staged carrier flight deck shot of a VX-9 orange painted China Lake weapons test F-4. The narrator acts like it is the original shot by emotionally saying “there it is!”

I had to watch it 20 times to figure out what’s going on. There’s no airplane in front of the test fire. It’s the only plane in the frame. It’s 1/2 second of footage, and it’s staged and fake. No yellow shirts, brown shirts, nobody on deck.

At the same time, on the other side of the world, the USS Liberty incident was happening in Israel, and his dad had to cover for that.

Check out the film, it does’t prove anything. It’s just kind of crap that the TRIAL BY FIRE video has a fake element.

again, thanks for your service."

[rlmorel]

I really am curious, though, apart from that. What do you think he did to cause the conflagration?

I don’t want to be enemies with you on FR over this, but I am honestly curious. Not trying to trick you here, just want to understand how you think it happened.

If you don’t want to answer, and just want to leave it at your ability to understand human nature to determine what happened that day, I won’t push any further.

[TigersEye]

I have no idea what your point is from that copy&paste post.

If it is intended in any way to prove that McCain was in any way culpable for the fire on the Forrestal it fails.

[rlmorel]

Sontagged, the Zuni missle was not seen directly, it was seen in the reflection of the glass through which the camera that was recording the flight operations had to film, but the camera was pointed in a different direction, not aft where the conflagration started.

[Sontagged]

It’s just extremely odd that movie about the Forrestal fire used fake footage to prove its thesis.

And I was making the comparison to George HW Bush’s mysterious WWII “heroics”...

Oddly this happened a year after FDR indicted HW’s dad Prescott for funding the Nazis.

[TigersEye]

I don't know which movie you are speaking of. This documentary that I linked to at post #26?

Documentary: USS Forrestal Aircraft Carrier Disaster 1:25:00

As rlmorel has said it shows that the the Zuni rocket firing in the film is seen in reflection not in the direct view of the camera.

[rlmorel]

Sontagged, as I said...the PLAT (Pilot Landing Aid Television) system picked up the reflection of the Zuni.

The PLAT camera system is on the island enclosed in a cylinder of plexiglass (which provided protection from dirt and debris) and he operator can see nearly the entire flight deck. It has the plane information it is looking at, and the time and date stamp imprinted in the film as it is taken.

The camera operator was looking at the A3 Skywarrior near the left bow cat which was preparing to launch. Because of this, the film missed the first five seconds of the fire. The operator saw people gesturing and saw something out of the corner of his eye.

He swung the camera to catch the planes already fully engulfed in flame.

When the Chief Investigator (Admiral Forsythe Massey) was examining the film in a loop (looking for the exact cause and which plane started it) he noticed a flash on the film while the camera was facing forward. It didn't appear to be connected to any event where the camera was pointing, but after some time, he realized it must have been a reflection on the inside of the plexiglass cylinder surrounding the camera.

He had people with hand held flash units (for cameras) flash from various points on the aft flight deck while he pointed the camera in the direction forward it was pointed on that day until he got a flash that matched exactly the artifact that appeared on the film of the accident. This allowed him to isolate which Phantom on the aft deck the missile came from, Lt. Bangert's plane.

The "how" of a missile firing was also explained and also replicated.

[rlmorel]

I explain it above.

The documentary is an excellent one and explains it fully. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, go to 1:15 and watch from there.

[TigersEye]

Thank you. The missing Zuni missile from Lt. Bangert’s plane was probably a pretty big piece of evidence as well. That had to be explained and most likely neither the fire nor the bombs exploding across the deck were potentially suspect as causes for that at all.

And since the investigation did find the exact cause of the Zuni missile malfunction, which was unrelated to external heat or concussion, it would have been by nearly miraculous odds that the missile malfunctioned at precisely the same time as a separate unrelated catastrophe was occurring on the other side of the deck.

[Sontagged]

Ummkay?

Something really weird and wrong here — re-created a plexiglass flash on the camera housing?

I’m sorry this smells like protesting too much snow jobbing.

McCain is an Elitist from an Elite family and a CFR member.

Please don’t write any more. Too much verbiage; something stinks.

I repeat my prayer (that I believe the Lord Jesus answered the day McCain said he had cancer)..

Lord I pray that You reveal the truth of McCain’s condition for all Americans to see for the good of our country.

And I also pray that You prevent McCain’s military past from becoming so controversial that people give up on ever finding out the actual truth.

I pray, Lord God, that You reveal the truth about ALL of McCain’s military doings; in the mysterious and wonderful way that You work, Lord God, may hidden witnesses or hidden documents that attest to the Truth come out... Lord, You are the Truth; so I pray this in Your mighty name. Amen.

Oh, and P.S. Lord God: I also ask that You unmask the Bushes’ military doings; and settle for once if it was Karl Rove who planted the fake documents on Dan Rather, as we all suspect, in order to divert attention from what the fake documents alluded to in an election year during wartime... And reveal the truth about HW’s WWII weirdnesses. Americans need to know the truth, Lord in order to make informed decisions; unmask, unveil and uncover the lies and deceptions here in these GOPe elites. Amen and Praise Your Name Lord God.

[rlmorel]

I think I understand you quite well.

[rlmorel]

I wouldn’t waste your time trying to explain further, TigersEye. The tagline tells you all you need to know.

[TigersEye]

Yikes!

[cva66snipe]

This stuff reminds me of a conspiracy theorist who posted here back in about 1998- about the time the Kursk sank. He could come up with some whoppers and what he couldn't another poster named after a faucet part could LOL. The second poster long gone from FR posted a Math professors article on (9/11 emergency communications at the WTC. 9/11 brought out the worst in conspiracy theories especially from those who do not understand steel only has to be heated to loose strength and it doesn't have to be molten or even red hot to change it's strength.

The first one who went on about KURSK and other Navy incidents real and imagined actually got Nuked from the site all post removed. I used to go into the old Forestall website an unofficial one ran by a former crew-member where shipmates there chewed the fat and reunited with shipmates.You'd think if McCain had started the fire as some insist they would have said so. They didn't.

People I know who know better including a shipmate and guy I was fire dept with even hates McCain so much he lets it blind him to logic and truth. When I debunked the launch he went to how McCain responded to the fire. Then after that his POW behavior. I pointed out to him that out former C.O. who was in Hilton at the same time endorsed him for POTUS he still kept going on. The C.O. became Rear Admiral before retiring. My buddy only served a couple months under that C.O. If McCain had sold out fellow POW's there is no way in hell my former C.O. would have endorsed him. Would he have known? Yeah he was same rank as McCain and both shot down within several months timeframe. Stockdale didn't go after McCain which also leads me to believe internet folk lore has made McCain the focus of a tragedy and in doing so takes away from some very heroic actions during that accident and two more many either have forgotten or never even read about.

Three carriers had major from Flight deck burning down below hanger deck fires within months of each other. One of course was Forestall. Another one was caused by a panicked sailor tossing a lit flare back into a flare locker onboard the USS Oransky leaving 44 dead 156 injured. The third and last one involved a Zuni rocket detonation in 1969 onboard the USS Enterprise CVN 65. Nobody mentions them isn't that amazing? 29 Died on Enterprise and 314 injured.

My guess and bet is when McCain was safely below deck he was taken to a private undisclosed room and debriefed as well as anyone else who may have had knowledge of the cause if they survived. N.I.S. investigates all fires from crashes down to the you can just about bet it's gonna happen swab fires after field day. The sooner the debriefing occurs the more accurate the information is.

[rlmorel]

I find some of this just sad.

People can get so blinded by hatred that they can rationalize nearly anything, disregarding logic and commonsense.

I don’t like to see it. Thanks for that input, though. I feel much the same way.

[cva66snipe]

Used to me many a conspiracy theory in here was quickly confirmed from reliable vetted sources or debunked by Freepers who had the knowledge to say either it was possible or impossible. One former Freeper {Sneakypete} was good at outing posers claiming valor or belong to Army units they were never in.

I worked under a couple of officers who had all the personality of a pit viper. One was bad for belittling people and quite abrupt when you needed to find out anything. But he knew the entire Engineering Plant lake the back of his hand and I mean he knew valve numbers and locations in hard to find places including the chill water loops. A class A Jerk but the man you wanted to be in Central when it hit the fan because his orders were accurate. He got transferred off for his shore duty rotation and ended up being assigned to the Propulsion Examination Board the inspectors who tested our knowledge skills for readiness. Yeap he came back onboard for it LOL. The other officer didn't care who someone was. The Admiral found out when his LOL. He was the ships DCA.