For information on Sen. John McCain's experience

read these excerpts from  
 
Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal
and the Heroes Who Fought It 
 
by
 
Gregory A. Freeman 
 
See the book for full references
to source material for information in these excerpts.
            

 

 
               … [On the day of the fire] Two of the crew members working with Bangert’s plane were busy checking the missiles and rockets to ensure that they were properly installed and that the systems were safe. One man began conducting stray voltage checks on the weapons systems, to make sure the electrical system was not malfunctioning in a way that could accidentally trigger the weapons. He found no stray voltage in any of the systems on the port side and then went to the starboard side to conduct the same tests. Having found no stray voltage or other potential problems with the weapons systems, he plugged in the “pigtails,” cable connectors that linked the rockets and the plane’s launching device. This was the shortcut approved by the ship’s administration for the sake of speed. Plugging in the pigtails armed the weapons on the port side.

            At 10:51 a.m. and 21 seconds, Bangert had just started his starboard engine. With the engine running, Bangert reached out to press the button that would switch

from the external cart’s power supply to the plane’s internal system. As his gloved

finger hit the button, Bangert and McKay both felt a mild explosion shake the plane. Bangert looked up in time to see a small rocket flying across the deck with a yellow-orange exhaust flame....

           ...The rocket was flying across the deck at chest height, at hundreds of miles

per hour, headed towards a fuel chief who was standing just behind the number 4 arresting wire, pretty much in the middle of the deck between Bangert’s plane and

those parked on the other side of the ship. He was knocked off his feet by the rocket

as it passed without touching him.
            Another sailor on deck was much less fortunate. An ordnanceman, he was walking along the flight deck in front of a group of A-4 Skyhawks when the Zuni rocket

hit him in the shoulder, passing through and instantly severing his arm but leaving him standing.
 

            The rocket then continued on, its course altered to the right by the collision

with the ordnanceman. Having traveled about 100 feet, the rocket then struck the A-4 Skyhawk piloted by John McCain....

 

            ... McCain felt a huge impact as the Zuni rocket tore through his plane on the right side and exited the left side, ripping open his fuel tank with 400 gallons of JP5 jet fuel. Two crewmen nearby were set on fire as the hot rocket exhaust passed by them. They were already rushing forward toward the island before the jet fuel spreading over

the deck ignited.

            Just below the flight deck at the very rear of the ship, Edmond McGrew was

on man overboard watch, keeping his eyes trained on the water in his sector, looking

for anyone who had fallen overboard. As McGrew watched the water on the port side

of the ship, another sailor had joined him on the fantail for a cigarette. Now they both

saw the Zuni rocket hit the water on the port side, never exploding. They could tell

that the object was not a man overboard, but they had no idea what it was.

             The fuel poured out of McCain’s torn plane, spreading to the rear of the ship rapidly as it was pushed not only by the 37 mph wind but by the exhausts of at least three jets positioned immediately in front of McCain’s plane. The jet fuel was ignited

soon by fragments of burning rocket propellant, but there was a delay of a second or

so as the fuel spilled from the plane, giving some crew members enough time to

realize the danger they were in. With a sudden, deafening “whoomp!” sound, the

fuel ignited and soon engulfed all of the A-4 Skyhawks parked on the port side....

 

            ...The pilots strapped inside their planes needed help to get out. As they l

ooked out of their canopies, they saw nothing but flames and black smoke, which

was so thick that some of them could not see well enough to tell what awaited them

 if they opened their canopies. And others who could see knew that they were surrounded by a burning lake of jet fuel. In that instant, dozens of crewmen around

those planes found themselves soaked in burning jet fuel. Several men stumbled

outof the fire scene, covered head to toe in flames. One pilot jumped out of his plane

and made his way out of the fire, his entire flight suit in flames. Once he got out of

the fire and headed toward safety, he inexplicably turned around and walked back i

nto the fire. Probably disoriented, he disappeared into the heart of the fire and never came back out.

            The fire had erupted so quickly that no one had a chance to warn those on

the rear portion of the deck to run toward the safety of the center deck and the island structure. The men trapped in the fire had little or no opportunity to escape the huge fireball that grew ever larger as the fuel poured out of the planes, each one adding hundreds of gallons of fuel to the fire.

            The rocket’s flight was almost caught on film by the plat camera, a television camera located on the island structure. The plat camera was used to record all flight deck operations for future study, and also to provide images of flight deck activities to monitors throughout the ship. When the rocket and the subsequent fire caught the camera operator’s eye, he was focused farther forward on a plane about to be

launched off a catapult. He immediately swung the camera back to the rear of the

ship and trained it on the fire, where it remained for hours, but he missed the actual launch of the rocket. The camera operator had to abandon his post after a while  becauseof shrapnel penetrating the space, but the camera continued to record the events. Later analysis of the film showed the reflection of the rocket in a window as it traveled across the deck. …

      ... Forward at the origin of the fire, McCain was making the same decision as all

the other pilots who found themselves trapped in the fire. Like the others who would survive, McCain wasted no time in getting out of his plane. McCain flipped the switches to shut down his engines, and at about the same time, he heard two loud clanks as

the 1,000-lb. bombs fell off his plane’s belly and hit the deck. McCain opened his

canopy and threw himself out on the nose of his airplane. He walked out onto the

narrow refueling probe and jumped down onto the deck and directly into the burning

fuel from his plane. He rolled through the fire to the forward edge of the inferno,

tumbling out with his flight suit on fire and covered in fuel. He quickly rolled and

patted out the flames on his clothes, then jumped to his feet, wasting no time in

running away from the scorching fire and toward the safety of the island. McCain ran

as fast as he could, glimpsing Dollarhide lying on the deck and being aided by others. He saw another pilot leaving his airplane in the same way he did, jumping into the fire and rolling clear. That pilot’s flight suit was in flames.

            All over the flight deck, crewmen were rushing to drag hoses from the fire stations toward the fire. …

 

     … The initial bomb blast had been deadly, but that first split-second was only the beginning of the death it would rain upon the men of Forrestal. All over the flight deck, men were being hit by bits of debris, some raining down from overhead and some

moving horizontally like a speeding bullet. Red hot, jagged bits of airplanes, tractors,

and bombs were flying across the deck, some as large as aircraft wheels, taking

down men who had been far enough away to survive the primary blast of the bomb.

            John McCain had taken only a few steps out of the fire when the blast hit him. He had turned to look back at the fire and the other men, which meant he was blown backward as bits of metal fired into his chest and his thighs. A larger piece of shrapnel slammed into the radio that hung from his neck, right over the center of his chest. McCain was momentarily stunned by the explosion, staggering backwards and

ducking to avoid more of the shrapnel, airplane parts, and even body parts that

were flying toward him. A headless body flew through the air and thumped down

next to him.…

     … John McCain had hustled off the flight deck and, after determining that his

injuries were not serious, he headed down to the hangar bay level. There he saw

some sailors heaving bombs off of one of the elevators and over the side of the ship.

He pitched in….
 

     … McCain worked with the group of men on the elevator, two or three of them

at a time grabbing a bomb and lugging it over to the deck edge. Some sailors found “bomb carts,” resembling a hand truck, to move the heavy bombs, but most of the

work was done by energetic, highly motivated young men putting their hands on the bombs. McCain saw that the crew was doing their best to use the equipment at hand, whatever they could find, but sometimes throwing things off a ship isn’t as easy as it sounds….

     …. After helping throw bombs overboard in the hangar bay, John McCain made

his way to the pilots’ “ready room” where they often gathered for briefings and other meetings. Several other pilots were there already, and McCain joined them in watching the flight deck action on a television monitor. The stationary camera was still

transmitting the scene from above, though the operator had long since fled from the danger.

            The pilots were impressed with the Forrestal’s crew.
            “We’re professional military men, and I suppose it’s our war,” McCain

said after the fire. “And yet, here were enlisted men who earn $150 a month and

work 18 to 20 hours a day -- and I mean manual labor -- and they certainly would

have survived had they not stayed to help the pilots and fight the fire.”