Gentlemen, Maybe not so fast on this McCain thing. The attached from a friend of mine who was there. He tells quite a different story. Regards, Addison
"The Forrestal disaster was not as described. The conflagration was horrific and replete with many mistakes that resulted in the loss on lives…unnecessarily. The most amazing action, albeit gruesome, I saw [we were viewing PLAT Camera tapes of the flight deck] showed fire fighting teams advancing on the huge deck fire, the lead crew [trained fire fighters] used AFFF foam to smother the flames. Sadly, untrained crews with water hosed the AFFF off and there was a horrendous back flash the completely wiped out both crews…about 12 men just gone. This scenario was repeated 3 or 4 times…now with completely untrained crews and with 500# bombs, 5” rockets, copious amounts of JP-4. It was a massacre. Heretofore, there were only selected damage control crews that had fire suppression training. As a result of this ALL personnel assigned the shipboard duty had to attend Shipboard Fire Fighting School. Inasmuch as I was assigned to a Task Force [CTF-76] as part of the 7th Fleet (I was the Air Support Coordinator for the Command… I was CTE76.3.5.3.4!) I went to the school… I thought I was going to die a horrible death by the time the class was over… I had no eyebrows, no hair on my arms, most of my head hair was nicely singed and I had a “rosy” glow. Anyway, back to McCain. He was in an A-4 armed with 5” rockets in the back pack awaiting launch… I’m not sure if his engine was running, I think not. He had a Huffer plugged in (which is used for starting) so that’s why I believe he hadn’t started. Because of limited space available, the Huffer wound up in close proximity to the A/C. The exhaust unfortunately was pointed directly at the rockets. [Again, this is very clear on the PLAT Tapes and moreover, McCain’s A-4 was herring bone aft with his tail out over the Port deck edge… no A/C was behind him]. It appeared that there was a ripple of rockets, if I remember correctly 2 or 3, that shot across the deck and hit various equipment, A/C and people. At this point, there was no fire around McCain’s A/C, it was all athwart ship and the Starboard side. That didn’t last long because those A/C started cooking off involving the Portside. The whole fantail was afire. The flaming fuel poured down into the Flight Officer’s area, ready Room[s] and offices. McCain made multiple trips below decks rescuing wounded. For THAT action, he was everything a hero should be. Picture you’re in a basement about 3 floors down, the only way up is by a very narrow ladder… picture one of those dropdown attic ladders. Now make it dark… real dark, you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face with a flashlight. Now make it hot, very hot, “I want to get into a Sauna to cool off” hot. Now here’s the good part… everything is on fire, but you can’t see it because it’s so dark, and the air is befouled with smoke from JP-4 and everything it set on fire. Do this 3 or 4 times! That’s my story…." On Aug 25, 2017, Curley McLain wrote: Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: What US congresscritter has killed more US servicemen Yep! McLame Now his daddy's namesake has killed more > Rick Knoble via Mercedes <mailto:mercedes@okiebenz.com> > August 22, 2017 at 10:05 AM > Probably McCain. > USS Forestall. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chuiyXQKw3I&sns=em > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWeq2DL_N4&sns=em > > It has been speculated that he was shot down by "friendly fire" in > retaliation for the Forestall incident. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
