Hi Tanker,
It's been awhile. I hope all is well in your part of the world.
Sad to say, when you look at his military service, it is not the best. From what I read he darn near took out an aircraft carrier and got several people killed in the process. I also read where the VC nicknamed him "songbird" for his willing cooperation in captivity.
Yet, unlike a former president, or a presidential candidate, when he took his oath, he served his country and did not come home and throw someone else's medals over the white house fence and become a protester....and lie to congress.
Bottom line, I personally do not celebrate his death - nor will I celebrate his life. I prefer to move on and hope someone is appointed to fill out his term that will respect our conservative cause.
Best regards,
5412
I want to correct you on the bolded part. On 29 July 1967, Lt. McCain was waiting on deck in his A-4 Skyhawk, portside aft, to launch on an airstrike in North Vietnam...
While preparing for the second sortie of the day, the aft portion of the flight deck was packed wing-to-wing with 12 A-4E Skyhawk, seven F-4B Phantom II, and two Vigilante aircraft. A total of 27 aircraft were on deck, fully loaded with bombs, rockets, ammunition, and fuel. Several tons of bombs were stored on wooden pallets on deck in the bomb farm.[15] A McDonnell Douglas F-4B Phantom (No. 110, BuNo 153061), flown by LCDR James E. Bangert and LT(JG) Lawrence E. McKay from VF-11, was positioned on the aft starboard corner of the deck, pointing about 45 degrees across the ship. It was armed with LAU-10 underwing rocket pods, each containing four unguided 5.0 in (127.0 mm) Mk-32 "Zuni" rockets. The Zuni was protected from launching by a safety pin that was only to be removed prior to launch from the catapult.
Zuni rocket launchedAt about 10:51 (local time) on 29 July, an electrical power surge in the Phantom occurred during the switch from external to internal power. The electrical surge caused one of the four 5-inch Mk-32 Zuni unguided rockets in a pod on external stores station 2 (port inboard station) to fire. The rocket was later determined to be missing the rocket safety pin, allowing the rocket to launch. The rocket flew about 100 feet (30 m) across the flight deck, likely severing the arm of a crewman, and ruptured a 400 US gallons (1,500 l; 330 imp gal) wing-mounted external fuel tank on a Skyhawk from VA-46 awaiting launch.
A drawing of the stern of Forrestal showing the spotting of aircraft at the time. Likely source of the Zuni was F-4 No. 110. White's and McCain's aircraft (A-4s No. 405 and 416, respectively) are in the right-hand circle.
Aircraft struckThe official Navy investigation identified the Skyhawk struck by the Zuni as aircraft No. 405, piloted by Lieutenant Commander (Lt. Cmdr.) Fred D. White. Lt. Cmdr. John McCain stated in his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers that the missile struck his aircraft, alongside White's A-4 Skyhawk. "On that Saturday morning in July, as I sat in the cockpit of my A-4 preparing to take off, a rocket hit the fuel tank under my airplane." Later accounts relying on his book also state that the rocket struck his A-4 Skyhawk.
The Zuni rocket's warhead safety mechanism prevented it from detonating. The rocket broke apart on impact with the external fuel tank. The highly flammable JP-5 fuel spread on the deck under White's and McCain's A-4s, ignited by numerous fragments of burning rocket propellant, and causing an instantaneous conflagration. A sailor standing about 100 feet (30 m) forward was struck by a fragment of the Zuni or the exploding fuel tank. A fragment also punctured the centerline external fuel tank of A-4 #310, positioned just aft of the jet blast deflector of catapult number 3. The resulting fire was fanned by 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph) winds and the exhaust of at least three jets. Fire quarters and then general quarters were sounded at 10:52 and 10:53. Condition ZEBRA was declared at 10:59, requiring all hands to secure the ship for maximum survivability, including closing the fire-proof steel doors that separate the ship's compartments.
The official report states that one Korean War-era 1000-lb AN-M65 bomb fell from a A-4 Skyhawk to the deck; other reports say two. The bomb fell in a pool of burning fuel between White's and McCain's aircraft.
Damage Control Team No. 8, led by Chief Farrier, were the first responders to any incident on the flight deck. They immediately took action. Farrier, without taking the time to locate and put on protective clothing, immediately attempted to smother the bomb with a PKP fire extinguisher, attempting to delay the fuel fire from spreading and give the pilots time to escape their aircraft. Based on their training, the team believed they had a 10-minute window to extinguish the fire before the bombs casing would melt resulting in a low-order explosion.
The pilots, preparing to launch, were strapped into their aircraft. When the fire started and quickly spread, they immediately attempted to escape their aircraft. McCain, pilot of A-4 Skyhawk side No. 416, next to White's, was among the first to notice the flames, and escaped by scrambling down the nose of his A-4 and jumping off the refueling probe. Lt. Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning, in a A-4E Skyhawk on the port side, escaped by crossing the flight deck and ducking under the tails of F-4B Phantoms spotted along the starboard side.[23] CVW-17 operations officer, Lt. Cmdr. Herbert A. Hope of VA-46, escaped by jumping out of the Skyhawk cockpit and rolling off the flight deck and into the starboard man-overboard net. He went to the hangar deck and took command of a firefighting team.
Bombs detonateDespite Chief Farrier's constant effort to cool the bomb that had fallen to the deck, the casing suddenly split open and the explosive began to burn brightly. The Chief, recognizing that a lethal cook-off was imminent, shouted for his firefighters to withdraw, but the bomb detonated — one minute and 36 seconds after the start of the fire. The unstable Composition B in the old bombs enhanced the power of the explosions. Thirty-five personnel were in close proximity to the blast. Two fire control teams were decimated; Farrier and all but three of his men were killed instantly. Twenty-seven men were injured.
"I saw a dozen people running... into the fire, just before the bomb cooked off," Lt. Cmdr. Browning later said. McCain saw another pilot on fire, and turned to help him, when the first bomb detonated. McCain was knocked backwards 10 feet, struck by shrapnel and wounded. White managed to get out of his burning aircraft but was killed by the detonation of the first bomb. Not all of the pilots were able to get out of their aircraft in time. Lt Ken McMillen escaped. LT(JG) Don Dameworth and LT(JG) David Dollarhide were injured escaping their aircraft. Lt. Cmdr.s Gerry Stark and Dennis Barton were missing. Two more of the unstable 1000 lb bombs exploded 10 seconds after the first, and a fourth blew up 44 seconds after that.
When he got back on deck, Browning recalled, "The port quarter of the flight deck where I was", he recalled, "is no longer there." LT James J. Campbell recoiled for a few moments in stunned dismay as burning torches tumbled toward him, until their screams stirred him to action. Several men jumped or were blown into the ocean. Neighboring ships came alongside and pulled the men from the water.
Fire enters lower decksThe first bomb detonation destroyed White's and McCain's aircraft, blew a crater in the armored flight deck, and sprayed the deck and crew with bomb fragments and shrapnel from the destroyed aircraft. Burning fuel poured through the hole in the deck into berthing compartments below. In the tightly packed formation on the aft deck, every aircraft, all fully fueled and bomb-laden, was damaged. Nine seconds later a second bomb exploded. Bodies and debris were hurled as far as the bow of the ship. All seven F-4s caught on fire.
In less than five minutes, seven or eight 1000-pound bombs, one 500-pound bomb, one 750-pound bomb, and several missile and rocket warheads heated by the fire exploded with varying degrees of violence.[26] Several of the explosions of the 1000-pound Korean War-era AN-M65 Composition B bombs were estimated to be as much as 50% more powerful than a standard 1000 lb bomb, due to the badly degraded Composition B.[16] The ninth explosion was attributed to a sympathetic detonation between an AN-M65 and a newer 500 lb M117 H6 bomb that were positioned next to each other. The other Composition H6-based bombs performed as designed and either burned on the deck or were jettisoned, but did not detonate under the heat of the fires. The ongoing detonations prevented fire suppression efforts during the first critical minutes of the disaster.
The explosions tore seven holes in the flight deck. About 40,000 US gallons (150,000 l; 33,000 imp gal) of burning jet fuel from ruptured aircraft tanks poured across the deck and through the holes in the deck into the aft hangar bay and berthing compartments. The explosions and fire killed fifty night crew personnel who were sleeping in berthing compartments below the aft portion of the flight deck. Forty-one additional crew members were killed in internal compartments in the after portion of Forrestal.
Personnel from all over the ship rallied to fight the fires and control further damage. They pushed aircraft, missiles, rockets, bombs, and burning fragments over the side. Sailors manually jettisoned numerous 250- and 500-lb. bombs by rolling them along the deck and off the side. Sailors without training in firefighting and damage control took over for the decimated damage control teams. Unknowingly, inexperienced hose teams using seawater washed away the efforts of others attempting to smother the fire with foam.
Fires controlledThe initial explosions killed or seriously injured most of the ship's specially trained damage control and firefighting teams, requiring the rest of the crew to step in and combat the subsequent fires.
The destroyer USS George K. MacKenzie (DD-836) picked men out of the water and directed its fire hoses on the burning ship. Destroyer USS Rupertus maneuvered as close as 20 feet (6.1 m) to Forrestal for 90 minutes, directing her own on-board fire hoses at the burning flight and hangar deck on the starboard side, and at the port-side aft 5-in. gun mount.[27] Rear Admiral and Task Group commander Harvey P. Lanham, aboard Forrestal, called the actions of Rupertus commanding officer Cmdr Edwin Burke an "act of magnificent seamanship".[27] At 11:47 A.M., Forrestal reported the flight deck fire was under control. About 30 minutes later, they had put out the flight deck fires. Fire fighting crews continued to fight fires below deck for many more hours.
Undetonated bombs were continually found during the afternoon. LT(JG) Robert Cates, the carrier's explosive ordnance demolition officer, calmly recounted later how he had "noticed that there was a 500-pound bomb and a 750-pound bomb in the middle of the flight deck... that were still smoking. They hadn't detonated or anything; they were just setting there smoking. So I went up and defused them and had them jettisoned." Another sailor volunteered to be lowered by line through a hole in the flight deck to defuse a live bomb that had dropped to the 03 level—even though the compartment was still on fire and full of smoke. Later on, LT(JG) Cates had himself lowered into the compartment to attach a line to the bomb so it could hauled up to the deck and jettisoned.
Throughout the day, the ship's medical staff worked in dangerous conditions to assist their comrades. HM2 Paul Streetman, one of 38 corpsmen assigned to the Forrestal, spent over 11 hours on the mangled flight deck tending to his shipmates. The large number of casualties quickly overwhelmed the ship's medical teams, and the Forrestal was escorted by USS Henry W. Tucker to rendezvous with hospital ship USS Repose at 20:54, allowing the crew to begin transferring the dead and wounded at 22:53. Firefighter Milt Crutchley said, "The worst was going back into the burned-out areas later and finding your dead and wounded shipmates." He said it was extremely difficult to remove charred, blackened bodies locked in rigor mortis "while maintaining some sort of dignity for your fallen comrades."
At 5:05, a muster of Forrestal crewmen — both in the carrier and aboard other ships — was begun. It took many hours to account for the ship's crew. Wounded and dead had been transferred to other ships, and some men were missing, either burned beyond recognition or blown overboard. At 6:44 p.m., fires were still burning in the ship's carpenter shop and in the aft compartments. At 8:33 P.M., the fires in the 02 and 03 levels were contained, but the areas were still too hot to enter. Fire fighting was greatly hampered because of smoke and heat. Crew members cut additional holes in the flight deck to help fight fires in the compartments below. At 12:20 a.m., July 30, 14 hours after the fires had begun, all the fires were controlled. Forrestal crew members continued to put out hot spots, clear smoke, and cool hot steel on the 02 and 03 levels. The fires were declared out at 4:00 A.M.