One minute and thirty-four seconds into the fire, the thousand-pound bomb from McCain’s plane exploded with a fury not felt on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier since World War II.
The detonation of a thousand-pound bomb on an armor-plated aircraft-carrier deck is a nearly unbelievable force. At that moment, the bomb’s high explosive is converted almost instantly to a gas at very high pressure and temperature. The pressure causes the metal casing to fragment, and the surrounding air is compressed into a shock wave that feels like atmospheric pressure of two hundred times or more. The temperature in such a blast can be ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit even before anything nearby is ignited. The blast of this weapon, designed to take out huge numbers of ground troops or fortified installations, was concentrated on the 1 3/4-inch steel-armored deck of a ship crowded with men already fighting to escape the flames and suffocating smoke. Even though the ship was designed to withstand direct hits from some of the most fearsome of military weapons, the point-blank detonation of such a massive bomb was too much for any armor. In an instant, the bomb blast sent a colossal fireball high in the sky while destroying everything in its immediate vicinity.
Shaver was looking at Farrier and had just started to get up from his crouching position behind the fire-extinguisher bottle when the blast hit. In the tiniest fraction of a second, Shaver saw Farrier thrown into the air and then simply disappear. And at the same instant, he felt the force of the bomb lifting him up and pulling at his body in a thousand different directions. Time slowed to a crawl and he felt as if his body itself were exploding, every part of his body pulling away from the rest. He was aware that he was flying through the air, and he could see yellow and red flames boiling up from the deck. He knew he was on fire. He felt the shrapnel tearing into his guts. Shaver would survive the explosion, but it began a terrible ordeal for him.
In the first milliseconds of the blast, Shaver was protected in part by the fire-extinguisher canister he was crouching behind. Most of the crew members closest to the bomb vanished in an instant, killed immediately by the force of the blast and the intense heat, never to be seen again. The shock wave from the bomb was like an invisible freight train rolling across the deck at lightning speed, hitting everyone and everything in its path with a ferocious force that knocked men to their knees if it didn’t send them flying.
The ship shook and rattled at its very core from the bomb blast. The bomb eruption was so ferocious that it was felt throughout the entire ship, down the length of the huge vessel and to the very bottom of the hull. Those who were belowdecks and still unaware of what was going on felt it rocking the ship, signaling serious trouble overhead.
Up on deck, the blast deafened everyone for a moment, and dozens of men were dazed, lying where the explosion had thrown them and trying to get their bearings. Others were scrambling to run and crawl from the blast area, desperately trying to move forward from what had become a hellish scene of death and destruction. The detonation of the bomb had turned an already bad situation into one of absolute horror. It was clear now that the fire was wildly out of control and the Forrestal was losing many men.
There had been thirty-five crew members near the bomb when it detonated. In a heartbeat, twenty-seven of them died or received fatal injuries. That twenty-seven included Farrier and five of the other eight members of Repair 8, the specially trained flight-deck firefighters. Most were killed instantly, along with eighteen other crew members, as they fought to contain the initial fire and cool the bombs that were heating rapidly in the burning jet fuel. The three Repair 8 firefighters not killed by the blast were seriously wounded. One minute and thirty-four seconds into the fire, the Forrestal’s firefighting team was gone.
All the while, shrapnel and burning debris fell all over the deck, forcing the men to dodge and weave as they ran for cover. 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 backward 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.
Roberts had been awakened from his nap in the fuel station just below the flight deck by the fire-alarm call. He and another man from his crew were headed up the ladder to the flight deck to see if they could help with the fire when the first bomb exploded. The other man had just started out onto the flight deck when the blast blew him back onto Roberts, the huge rush of wind pressing the clothes tight against their bodies. After pausing for a moment, they proceeded onto the flight deck. Once they stood up, they could not believe the hell in front of them. The raging fire drew their attention first and then Roberts saw a man stagger forward and slump down on the deck. He had no face. It looked as if his entire face had been surgically cut off. The man also was burned, most of his clothing gone.
Roberts was terrified at the sight but felt compelled to help the man. He bent down and put his arm around the man’s shoulders, supporting him as he sat in a tangle of metal equipment and debris. It was only then that he saw the tattoo on the man’s arm. “Justin.” Roberts remembered when his friend Justin had gotten that tattoo on shore leave.
“You’ll be okay, here, Justin!” he shouted over the noise. Roberts quickly waved over a couple of medical corpsmen with a stretcher basket. They bent down to take Justin, and Roberts patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll be okay!”
But that was all he could do for Justin. He felt a wave of nausea building in him and leapt up to get away from it. He then saw two men helping his friend Scotty toward the island. A small, baby-faced eighteen-year-old who was new to the crew, Scotty was considered a mascot of sorts; everyone liked him. Roberts could see that Scotty had lost most of one foot. Still amazed at what he was seeing on the flight deck, Roberts kept looking up in the sky for the attacking planes.
Where are they? If we’re under attack, where the fuck are the planes?
He was sure the Vietnamese had managed to attack the carrier with fighter planes, strafing the deck and lobbing bombs. That was the only explanation that made sense. That was the only thing that could cause this kind of shit.
While he was looking around, Roberts noticed a figure lying amid all the tow bars and other apparatus behind the island. It was his own crew’s plane director, Kenneth Strain. The man’s face was blackened, and the rest of his body was severely burned. Roberts had to fight the urge to run away from the sight, but he went closer and called out to his crewmate.
“Strain! Strain! Come on, let’s get you up and outta here!”
The man did not respond, so Roberts tried to grab him under the armpits and drag him closer to the island, farther from the fire. Roberts pulled, and the burned body gave way, his hands slipping on waxy, slick flesh. He fell back hard onto the deck.
“Motherfucking shit!” he screamed. Roberts was overcome with a mix of anger and revulsion. He looked at his hands and couldn’t believe what had just happened. He went back to Strain and tried again, this time locking his arms behind the man’s back, trying to tug him toward the island. Once again, the slick body slipped through Roberts’s hands and he fell back.
“Goddammit!” he yelled. Then he got down closer to Strain’s face and yelled at him. “Don’t die! Don’t die! I’ll get you some help!”
Feeling light-headed by now, Roberts got back on his feet and looked around for help. Men were running in all directions. And there were still no planes overhead. Even in the midst of so much horror, this frustrated him greatly. If people were killing his friends, goddammit, he wanted to see them. He stood and looked up at the sky.
“Where are the sorry motherfuckers doing this to us?” he screamed.
When the initial wave of fire and smoke from the first blast died down slightly, those on the bridge and forward on the flight deck could see that the bomb had devastated the entire area near McCain’s plane. Where there had been planes and dozens of men fighting the fire, nothing was left but a roiling ball of fire and a cloud of thick, oily smoke. Captain Beling looked down from his perch high above the fire and was astounded. My God, we’ve got bombs going off. What the hell is going on here?
James Bloedorn was still on the bridge after handing control over to the captain, and he too was dumbstruck by the first explosion. Just weeks earlier, he had been in an ordnance-training class that included a film about how modern bombs were supposed to be fire resistant. The film had shown a thousand-pound bomb suspended over a fuel fire, and the instructors said the bomb would last at least ten minutes before exploding. Why the hell did we have a bomb go off? This fire just started.
Bob Shelton had walked over to the port side of the bridge in the first few moments of the fire to see what was happening. Along with several others on the bridge, he had been peering down through the armored glass at the fire when the explosion hit. They instinctively ducked for cover as the first bomb went off, feeling the thump as the bomb’s concussion hit the armor plating on the bridge and the air exchange as the explosion forced air into the compartment and then sucked it out again. They slowly stood up to look again at the sight below. The officers and crew on the bridge looked down to see no one standing where before dozens of crew had been training hoses on the fire. Instead, men were running toward the island, heading forward on the flight deck, and more than a few were doing so as their clothes burned, trailing blood behind them and desperately crawling or staggering away from the searing heat on their backs. One crewman or aviator could be seen pulling himself slowly along the flight deck, doggedly clawing his way out of the fire and toward the safety of the island, his legs blown off at the waist.
In the worst of the fire and explosions, the men were desperate to get to the island, home base on the flight deck, the only area on a flat ship that represented any real shelter from the hell blowing all around them. The island represented safety, and perhaps more important, it represented the command structure of the ship. These sailors desperately needed to get away from the fire, but in this moment of terror, they also were running and dragging themselves home, to the one spot on that deck they knew as a safe haven. Many would not make it home.
Sailors and aviators were down all over the deck, and the blasts wounded some fliers as they sat in their planes. Others had been blown off the ship by the blast, thrown into the sea by the explosion, sometimes with serious injuries that made their water survival unlikely. Sailors on the other ships in the vicinity could see fireballs falling away from the Forrestal flight deck, into the water, and most did not immediately realize that those fireballs were men, engulfed in flames and either leaping into the sea or being blown off the deck by an explosion. On the Forrestal deck, Lieutenant James Campbell stood transfixed beneath an F-4 Phantom, stunned by the explosions and unsure where to go or what to do. In the havoc, he could see fireballs hopping and tumbling across the deck. He just stared at them. It took a short moment for him to realize they were men.
Campbell and scores of other men rushed to the burning men and flung themselves on them, rolling around on the burning men, desperately trying to put out the flames. Campbell managed to extinguish the top part of one man’s body but saw that his legs were still burning as the medics quickly carried him away. The burned men were screaming.
As those on deck struggled to their feet, they could see that the Forrestal’s firefighting crew was gone. Chief Farrier and his men had vanished, leaving charged fire hoses flapping wildly on the deck, most of them shredded by the force of the explosion.
Despite the horror of seeing so many men killed and injured, and the horrific fire that awaited them aft, the men of Forrestal headed back to fight the fire and help those who were injured and stranded close to the fire. With burning debris still raining down on their heads, they raced back toward the very area where dozens of people had just been destroyed. Various crew members picked up what remained of the hoses left by the Repair 8 crew and began to fight the fire again, while others started to bring more hoses to the scene.
Nine seconds after the first bomb blast, a second bomb exploded behind the wall of fire with even more violence than the first. This explosion hurled bodies and debris as far as the bow, more than three hundred yards away. Looking down from the bridge in shock and disbelief, Captain Beling watched as a man was lifted up in the air and thrown the entire length of the deck, his body sailing helplessly like a rag doll. An officer standing on the front of the ship, as far away from the fire scene as one could possibly be, was killed instantly when a piece of shrapnel hit him in the heart.
Beling felt particularly helpless to have to sit there in the captain’s chair and watch those men out on deck while he was relatively safe up on the bridge.
The first bomb blast had spread the fire significantly, and now the second bomb greatly extended its reach. No longer was the blaze contained mostly to the rear port corner of the ship. Now it had spread across the deck to the starboard side, even approaching dangerously close to the island structure. When the second explosion ripped across the ship like another scythe, the crew on deck realized that the ordnance on deck was cooking off and that the first explosion was not a fluke. There are hundreds of bombs out here! Some of the men were surprised that the bombs had started going off so soon into the fire, but they had no time to consider why. The two blasts in quick succession had made it clear that the carrier deck was a deadly place to be. Without any orders being given, the crew realized that they had to take cover while the bombs wreaked havoc on the flight deck. For the moment, simply surviving the explosions was of primary importance. Fighting the fire would have to wait.
The crew members sought shelter wherever they could. Some were trapped out on the deck, seriously injured from the fire and the explosions, missing limbs and suffering from the terrible wounds caused by flying debris and ammunition. Other crew members did their best to help the injured to safety, but in the chaos of the moment, and with the dire need to get out of harm’s way, not everyone could be helped. Men crowded around the island structure, seeking shelter behind its thick walls, with some huddling in the Repair 8 crash shack. Others looked at the “bomb farm” directly behind the island on the starboard side, the area where bombs were stored to keep them out of harm’s way, and decided they did not want to hide behind thousands of pounds of explosives. They kept running forward.
All across the deck, men were seeking shelter however and wherever they could, diving into catwalks, down ladders and hatches, anything to seek refuge from the hell on the aft end of the flight deck.
Most of the men were in the full throes of a terror-induced adrenaline rush. The mind raced and time slowed. If you leapt into the air, it seemed to take days before you came down. The exertion and excitement made their mouths unbearably dry. And the men worried.
Oh my God, I’m never going to see my momma and daddy again, Roberts thought. I’m never going to smell fresh-cut grass again.
The admiral on board the Forrestal, Rear Admiral Harvey Lanham, had not been summoned immediately when the fire first broke out. Though the Forrestal was his flagship and he controlled the overall operations of the carrier, the air wings, and the accompanying ships, Lanham did not actually command the ship on a daily basis. That was Beling’s job. Lanham was in his quarters when the fire broke out, but when the first bomb went off, he realized there was a serious problem and that he should see for himself.
He dashed for the bridge, knowing from practice drills that he could make it in one minute and fifty seconds. He felt explosions rocking the ship as he made his way. When he got to the bridge, the admiral could see that Beling was already in charge. Lanham surveyed the flight deck and was amazed to see the damage that already had occurred.
As he stared out the window in shock at what was happening, his marine orderly rushed over and roughly grabbed his arm.
“Get away from that window!” the marine yelled. “It’s not safe!”
The young man yanked the admiral down to the floor just as another explosion shook the ship. A large piece of shrapnel crashed through the thick Plexiglas where the admiral’s face had just been. Captain Beling ordered everyone to stay away from the left side of the bridge where he was, closest to the explosions, but he stayed in his chair looking right out the window.
Things were even worse in pri-fly, the primary flight-control center, one deck above the bridge but sixty feet farther back toward the fire. This was where the ship’s air-crew officers controlled flight operations on the deck from a windowed room that looked similar to the bridge. The big windows on three sides of the room provided a clear view of the entire flight deck, but now with the bombs going off, those windows made pri-fly a dangerous place to be. The officers and crew there were ducking for cover as the bombs went off on the deck, and the two crewmen standing watch on the catwalk just outside pri-fly rushed in to take cover from the explosions. They found that pri-fly offered little sanctuary, however. One of the watch sailors made it into pri-fly, but by then, some of the thick, battle-ready windows had been blown out by the blasts and those inside were looking for a way out. As officers and crew started to scramble for a way out, the watch sailor was hit hard by a shock wave from one of the bombs on deck and thrown over some chairs, against a distant wall, and onto the deck. As soon as they could get out, pri-fly was abandoned.
Each explosion rocked the ship, rattling the metal framework and breaking windows. All over the flight deck, men hid behind whatever they could find, but they were also trying to administer first aid to the wounded. No one knew how long the bomb blasts would last. Never knowing if the next bomb blast would be the one to kill you, the men waited and waited for what seemed forever. As soon as one bomb blast faded away, another bomb cooked off. Seven major explosions followed—all from the older thousand-pound bombs. At the same time, rockets and missiles were detonating in the heat. After five minutes, the blasts stopped, and the men started to come out onto the open deck again. The fire was out of control and had to be stopped.
The fire had grown into a massive blaze, enveloping the entire rear portion of the flight deck, and the forty thousand gallons of jet fuel on board the burning aircraft was feeding the fire. The JP5 jet fuel, something akin to kerosene, was not all that easy to ignite, but it would burn furiously. The burning fuel created a shallow sea of fire that was flowing over the sides of the ship. The burning jet fuel poured off the deck and down onto the structures below, setting fires on the sponsons jutting out from the side, the fantail at the very rear of the ship, and Hangar Bay 3 one deck below.
After the initial explosions subsided, Merv Rowland’s voice boomed across the 1MC public-address system to tell the crew that they should come out from their cover on the flight deck and go back to work fighting the fire.
“Repair parties, this is control. Re-man your stations! All repair-fleet personnel, this is control. You can now re-man your stations. Stay on the job!”
Men rushed back toward the fire, getting as close as they could to the searing heat and grabbing what remained of the fire hoses that lay sputtering on the deck, most of them ripped to shreds, a frightful suggestion of what must have happened to the men who had been holding them.
As the crew men moved forward again to fight the fire, Beling looked down from the bridge and saw something that gave him a sinking feeling of fear and despair.
Oh my God…The deck is open…
The burning jet fuel wasn’t just flowing over the sides of the ship. It was flowing down through huge holes that had been blasted in the flight deck by the exploding bombs. Beling knew what lay just beneath the surface of the flight deck—berthing quarters where men were sleeping. All over the flight deck, men were thinking the same thing.
There are men down there!
The first bomb had blasted a hole that was ten feet across, with the heavy metal curled down at the edges as if a fist had punched through tinfoil. And the bombs had opened similar holes in other areas on the deck. Beling could only imagine the devastation that the exploding bombs must have caused belowdecks. Now liquid fire was pouring down into the heart of the Forrestal.
The men berthing in the area directly underneath the fire scene had been up on their regular shift all night; the morning was their normal rest period, so they were in their bunks when most of the crew were well into their workday. Others sleeping in the same general vicinity had been given permission to sleep late to compensate for the previous night’s operations. These men were used to resting in conditions that most people would find impossible; they had become accustomed to sleeping just feet below the deck of an aircraft carrier, with almost no noise insulation. The sound of aircraft taking off and landing was as normal to them as the creaking of an old bed or the snoring of a sibling. You got used to it after a while, or else you never got any sleep. In this particular berthing area, the men had to get used to the sounds of aircraft slamming down hard on the deck directly above them because they were aft, near the arresting gear where the planes landed. These were men who had learned to sleep through anything, and that would cost many of them their lives.
Just to the rear of the fire area at McCain’s plane, Gary Pritchard was asleep in his bunk after a twelve-hour shift. He and his division crewmates had been in a compartment farther back earlier in the trip, not so directly under the arresting gear, but they had been displaced by an air squadron that came aboard and pulled rank to get the choicer spot. Pritchard and his buddies had been forced to move to a compartment directly under the arresting gear and closer to the fire site.
Pritchard considered it the worst place in the world to try to sleep. But they managed, drifting off and ignoring most of the noise, but usually waking with a jolt when a plane slammed down and the arresting cable dragged across the deck.
When the first alarms sounded for fire on the flight deck, many of those sleeping in that area did not even hear it. Those who heard the fire call probably did nothing more than roll over and perhaps listen halfheartedly for further announcements. The fire call did not involve any orders for them to act, and there was no indication that they were in danger. They could not have known that the initial fire call would be their only warning. The men never got a chance to save themselves because the general-quarters alarm came at about 10:53 A.M., just seconds before the first bomb blast hit.
When the bomb from McCain’s plane blew up, it smashed through the deck and into the compartment where the sailors were sleeping. Many were killed instantly, never knowing, while others were awakened by the blast and seriously injured. Those who survived the initial blast found themselves under a rain of burning fuel pouring down from the flight deck.
Fifty men sleeping in that berthing area were killed by the explosions and burning fuel, and another forty-one died in nearby areas directly beneath the flight deck. Nine berthing compartments in the aft area were destroyed.
Pritchard’s area was just far enough aft of the first explosion that he and his bunkmates survived. But they were close enough to know that they had only barely survived.
The bombs were sending concussions through the compartment that were just unbelievable, an incredible, invisible force that rippled through the berthing area, tossing men out of bed and slamming them against walls. The shock waves were so violent that Pritchard was completely disoriented when he woke up. The first thing he knew, he was standing by his bunk with his pants and his shoes in his hands.
The shock waves from the exploding bombs started to come in quick succession as Pritchard and the other crew members in the berthing area responded by donning a bit of clothing and rushing out. Even without any information, they could tell that this area was way too close to whatever was going on outside and they wanted out fast.
Pritchard’s buddy Frenchie (not the same “French” who was sunbathing with Frank Eurice) had the bunk right alongside of him and when the two men found each other, Frenchie’s eyes were as big as moons. They were temporarily deafened after each explosion, watching the commotion in an eerie silence until the hearing returned, the panicked noise of their buddies swelling to a crescendo again. Pritchard and his buddy tried to stay together as they made their way out into the passageway leading from their compartment, but the area was jammed shoulder to shoulder with men. Some men were wounded already.
“Clear a path! We’ve got wounded here! Make a hole!”
With general quarters already sounded, Pritchard and Frenchie tried to make it to their GQ stations up on the flight deck, where they could man a fuel-pumping station. The scene was so chaotic on their deck level, however, that they had trouble making any forward progress. People were scared and confused, and no one knew exactly what they should be doing. And no one had any idea what was going on. With all the bombs going off, only one thing made sense.
“We’re being attacked! They’re bombing us! We gotta get outta here!” The men were shocked to find themselves under attack, but they struggled to make sense of what little they knew. “They’re going for the steering! The bombs are all aft. They’re trying to knock out our steering!”
Pritchard agreed with most of those around him that somehow the Vietnamese must have gotten close enough to bomb the carrier. He instantly pictured in his head a scene straight out of World War II and countless old movies—a Japanese pilot with a leather helmet diving down on the back of the ship. With adrenaline surging and scared to death, Pritchard clearly pictured a Japanese pilot muttering “Yankee motherfucker!” as he bore down on the Forrestal. Pritchard and every other man in that passageway feared they would be trapped belowdecks if the attackers sunk the carrier.
In another berthing compartment a few decks down and farther toward the rear of the ship, Paul Friedman was sound asleep in his upper bunk right up until the first explosion. He had spent a long twelve hours working in the mess hall, and he never even heard the alarms that followed the start of the fire. He had gone to sleep about 6 A.M. and managed to sleep deeply in all the usual noise.
Friedman awoke to the sound of a blast, and when he opened his eyes, the bulkhead to his right was missing. There was some sort of powdery stuff in the air all around him. He was stunned from the explosion and as he lay there, he looked around without moving. He could see fire where another bulkhead was cracked, and he could see other shipmates just lying there motionless, staring back at him. He was stunned, deafened, and was wondering what was real and what was a dream. It was surreal: men awakened from a deep sleep to find themselves in the midst of disaster.
After a few seconds, Friedman looked down toward the foot of his bunk. He could see that his foot was bloody, the red ooze beginning to soak the sheets on his bunk. A piece of shrapnel had gone through the bottom of his foot as he lay sleeping, but he had not yet felt the pain. Then, very quickly, Friedman realized he was not dreaming. His hearing returned and suddenly chaos was all around him. As the explosions continued, he realized the ship was under attack.
Oh shit, we’re being attacked by MiGs, Friedman thought, referring to the Soviet-built fighter plane. God, the five-inch guns are pounding! Why are they firing the five-inch guns? We must really be under attack!
Friedman sprang out of his bunk, joining the dozens of other sailors rushing to evacuate the compartment. Some already were helping the wounded, carrying injured sailors through the crowd, cradling a head wound, dragging men out of their bunks. Everyone was running to the port passageway to get out, and Friedman was hobbling along on his injured foot, the pain setting in so that it made running difficult. He faltered at one point and fell down in the rushing crowd, but almost immediately, a buddy he knew as Alabama picked him up. A big guy, Alabama picked up Friedman like a twig and eventually helped him get to the sick bay.
Out on the starboard-side gun-mount area where Frank Eurice and his buddy French were sunbathing, the first explosion shook them out of their bewilderment about the black smoke on the far end of the ship. When the explosion occurred, they felt it even where they were, far forward of the fire.
The huge explosion shook them hard and then they could see a sheet of flame, smoke, and pieces of confetti going skyward.
Eurice and French were both momentarily stunned, their jaws dropping open in disbelief. Then Eurice turned to his buddy and yelled, “I think it’s time for general quarters!” and took off.
Eurice hustled through the hatch that led off the sponson and back into the ship, with French close behind him. By that time, burning jet fuel was beginning to come off the edge of the flight deck and French was burned on his shoulder as he made it through the hatch.
With the general-quarters alarm sounding throughout the ship, Eurice bolted down to his station, which was the “2 main stern tube” to the rear of the port steering compartment. He made it there in record speed. We’re in deep shit! This is for real, man. We got some kind of real nasty break and we are really in deep shit!
His duty during general quarters was to “maintain a good leak” on the propeller shaft at the ship’s very rear where it enters the water, keeping just enough seawater on the bearing mechanism so that it was cooled but not so much that the compartment would flood. Failure in either direction would mean that the propeller shaft would become inoperable, crippling the ship’s propulsion. Despite its importance, this work was normally extremely boring. That’s why there was always a tall stack of Playboy magazines in the little compartment, no bigger than your average car interior. On this day, Eurice arrived at his station just as the bombs were cooking off far above him on the flight deck.
Eurice was on a little catwalk trying to get to his workstation when one of the thousand-pound bombs went off far overhead. The noise was deafening and the explosions kicked him over a railing and into the bilges, a pit at the very bottom of the ship filled with seawater and various filth.
Throughout the ship, men were rushing to their GQ stations. Ken Killmeyer was running aft to his GQ station, the magazine-handling room for the five-inch port gun aft and below on the fourth deck. The narrow passageways, cramped even when two sailors were calmly passing each other, became tight thoroughfares as everyone tried to get to their appointed stations and started sealing hatches and making other emergency preparations. As he ran down a passageway, Killmeyer felt the first explosion rock the ship and send the waffle-like fluorescent light covers swinging down toward his face. Dust shook off the hatches, lights, and pipe work overhead, creating an unsettling scene for someone who knew what it took to shake such a big ship so violently.
All along the way, “repair parties” were breaking out emergency equipment from repair lockers and manning their own GQ stations. When Killmeyer got to a hatch he would need to access a ladder taking him down to his GQ station, a repair party was there already and one member was plugging his headset into a communications outlet. Bombs were still going off overhead, and Killmeyer followed another crew member through the hatch and started down the ladder to the magazine-handling area.
As he was halfway through the hatch in the floor, one of the repair-party members stopped him.
“Wait, come here!” he called out. “Don’t go down there any more!”
Killmeyer saw that the man was talking to someone on the phone, and he stopped on the ladder. Scared but pumped full of adrenaline, Killmeyer wanted to keep going. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have to get to my GQ station. Now!
Killmeyer yelled to the repair party that his GQ station was down that hatch and he had to go, but the repair party kept telling him to wait.
“They’re talking about flooding the magazines!” the guy from the repair party shouted back over the noise of the explosions and the ship rattling. This was not good news. It meant that Killmeyer could not go to his GQ station, even though others already had gone down, but more important, it suggested that things were very bad. The magazines holding ammunition for the ship’s guns and aircraft could be flooded with seawater in an emergency to eliminate the risk of a fire setting off the explosives, but that would always be a last-ditch measure. Flooding the magazines put all of that ammunition and ordnance out of commission, and it was generally something you avoided if at all possible. The only reason to flood the magazines was that you needed to save the ship. That decision, if it ever came, would be made in damage control.
Merv Rowland had joined the mass of men running through the ship, shouting questions and orders, everyone wondering what the hell was going on. He made his way to a ladder that would take him down to the deck housing damage control, and that’s when he felt the first bomb go off up on the flight deck. The blast almost knocked him off the ladder.
Awwww shit. They’ve snuck out there with a goddamn gunboat or something and set off our ammunition.
As Rowland continued making his way, he started thinking about what ammunition was vulnerable to the attack.
Christ, the next strike’s ammunition is on the flight deck! That’s a big damn strike too. And the next strike’s ammunition is on the mess deck, and then another strike is being readied down in the magazines to go up. Son of a bitch, they could blow this whole ship out of the water!
Rowland was scared by what he thought was going on. He counted three more explosions overhead before he got to the damage-control hatch, and then he stopped counting. When he got to central control, Rowland found the room already crowded with sailors assuming their duties for the emergency. A number of men already were manning the phones to get damage reports, and information started flying toward Rowland as soon as his crew saw him dash in.
The first thing he did was to look at the fire-main pressure, the water system that would be used throughout the ship for fighting fires. He told the sailor at that station, “You better make damn sure that fire-main pressure doesn’t go below a hundred and fifty pounds.” Next, he checked how many generators were on line, knowing all four main plants should be on line because of the scheduled plane launches.
Rowland then took his position in the big chair, assuming control of almost all of the ship’s response to the fire. Everything would flow through Rowland’s position in damage control. He immediately ordered another generator put on line, in case one of the present generators was put out of commission. Then he turned his attention to the tall Plexiglas plotting boards where sailors were already posting information. Many of the young men were wearing headsets and receiving constant reports from throughout the ship, then posting them on the plotting boards in grease pencil. With that information, Rowland could monitor where the fire was, what systems had been damaged, and the current readiness of vital operations like the ship’s propulsion system.
Rowland could visualize the entire ship’s operations on the boards, and if he saw something that interested him, he would call the phone talker over and get the information straight from him. Information was key in an emergency, and that put Rowland in a unique position. He was far belowdecks with no direct sight of any fires, damage, or emergency response, but if anyone on the ship knew what was going on, it was Rowland.
He realized he was the only man on the Forrestal who knew what was going on throughout the ship. Not even the captain had more information. It was hard to absorb so much, but when he found a hot spot, he would concentrate on that problem and trust his crew to handle the rest.
Rowland was in close contact with the bridge, so it wasn’t long before Rowland realized that there was no attack and that the crisis had begun with a flight-deck fire. He couldn’t believe a fire on the top deck had gotten so bad.
I know goddamn well we’ll get this fire out, but I can’t believe we just shot ourselves in the foot. At least some goddamn gook’s not going to end my career.
Damage control kept the captain and the bridge fully informed, with Rowland frequently on the phone to Captain Beling, updating him on the fire damage and the emergency response. Years later, Beling would modestly claim that all he did was “steer the ship” while others did the real work in putting out the fires, a vast oversimplification that says more about the captain’s respect for his crew than what he actually did during the fire. But still, it is true that Rowland was the man responsible, more than any other individual, for saving the Forrestal. He was experienced and capable, and he had no intention of letting his ship and his boys succumb to this fire.
Much of Rowland’s attention was directed to the ammunition magazines throughout the ship. No matter how bad things were elsewhere, Rowland knew that the ship could be destroyed in one devastating blast if the fire got to the ammunition. The question of flooding the magazines had arisen very soon in the crisis, once the bombs started going off and burning jet fuel poured down into the lower decks.
Rowland was watching an array of gauges and indicators that gave him a good idea of what was going on anywhere in the ship. His attention was largely focused on the temperature gauges for the ammunition magazines. Each one’s temperature was indicated separately, and this was important enough that he wanted two sailors standing in front of each gauge, staring at the numbers, ready to scream out if the magazines started heating up even a little.
With the fires spreading, it did not take long for some of the temperature gauges to start rising. Rowland had to be careful with his decision. If he waited too long, the ammunition could ignite in one split second. He called Clark Chisum, the Forrestal’s weapons officer, to find out exactly what was in the weapons magazines that were heating up. Chisum told him he thought those magazines held only inert material at the moment, nothing explosive, but he wasn’t absolutely sure yet.
“Okay, but the magazines are pretty close to all that hot stuff,” Rowland said. “Clark, I think we ought to flood those magazines and make sure we don’t have this whole damn ship go up at once.”
Chisum didn’t argue with him, so Rowland called the bridge to get permission to flood the magazine. Beling couldn’t speak to Rowland immediately because he had stepped off the bridge momentarily to get a better view of the fire on the rear of the deck. Though Rowland had authority to do almost anything else he deemed necessary, flooding the magazines was such a serious, irreversible action that protocol required permission from the captain himself.
The navigator on the bridge took the call and told Rowland he could not flood the magazines without the captain personally giving the order.
“The hell I can’t!” Rowland screamed back over the phone. “If he doesn’t get back and that thing gets any hotter, I’ll flood! I’ll flood the goddamn thing with or without permission!”
Rowland slammed the phone down and continued to watch the temperature gauges. Beling would most likely have deferred to Rowland’s judgment, but fortunately, he soon got word that the magazines in question were devoid of any explosive material, so there was no need to flood. Though damage control constantly produced tense moments like that, full knowledge of the situation made Rowland confident and a damn sight less scared than if he had to wonder about what was going on.
Rowland’s confidence stemmed directly from being so well informed, and that put him in a very different position from thousands of other men on the ship. Soon into the fire, Rowland knew that he would save his ship. But others had little or no information to work with, and they were not nearly as sure.
With so many men on the ship, a chaotic situation like a major fire can create vastly different experiences for individuals. Just as Rowland and Beling’s experience was far different from those of sailors in the middle of the fire and explosions, so were some sailors’ experiences different from other crew members’ simply because of where they happened to be stationed for GQ or where they happened to be when the fire broke out. Many men died because they were directly in the vicinity of the fire and the exploding bombs, while many others survived because some quirk of fate or a lucky change in their routine took them out of harm’s way. Many survivors would marvel, years later, at how a simple change in their routine had kept them from a place where they almost certainly would have been killed.
Some sailors found themselves isolated from the worst of the danger on board the ship, never truly out of harm’s way as the fire and explosions tore through the ship, but far enough away that they didn’t immediately fear for their lives. But being that far away also meant that they had little or no information about what was going on, and that could, in its own way, create a different kind of hell. Nineteen-year-old Robert Whelpley, an aviation-supply runner, received exactly that kind of mixed blessing when the fire broke out.
Whelpley’s job was to run for aviation parts needed by the aviation squadrons. The mechanics working on the planes would request a part, and Whelply would be dispatched to the appropriate storeroom to fetch it. It was a fairly simple job that required a lot of running around the ship from one storeroom to another, collecting parts on his list, and then making his way back to the hangar-bay deck to deliver them. On this particular morning, Whelpley had made his way to a supply room that was about midship and three decks down. He had another stop to make at a supply room farther aft, and normally he would have gone to that area first so that he had fewer items to carry on the rest of the trip. But on this morning, Whelpley had decided to stop at the midship storeroom first and have a cigarette with a friend who worked there. He knew the aft storeroom was a busy place that morning, so the midship stop was a better place to take a breather.
Whelpley was shooting the breeze with his friend when the fire alarm sounded, but neither man paid much attention. He was just getting ready to leave and finish his delivery rounds when the general-quarters alarm sounded.
Oh no, not again, Whelpley thought, weary of the many GQ drills and the disruption they always caused. But he immediately put out his cigarette, dropped the parts he had obtained at the storeroom, and called out, “See you later!” to his friend. Then he started racing to his GQ station. Because he happened to be at that particular supply room when the GQ alarm sounded, Whelpley didn’t have far to go. His GQ station was directly above him on the hangar-deck level, requiring only a short run through a couple of bulkheads and then up a ladder.
Whelpley’s GQ station was a small, nondescript passageway on the port side of the ship. At several spots along the wall, there were portals with ladders leading down to the second deck, a quick way to get down into the bowels of the ship from the hangar-deck level. As was the case for a great many men, Whelpley’s GQ assignment was nothing exciting or glamorous. He was to report to this passageway area and just wait for further instructions. In an emergency, he might be told to monitor who went down the ladders or to prevent people from going down the ladders into a dangerous area. Or he might be pulled away from the passageway for duties elsewhere.
On the way to his station, Whelpley realized that this was not just another drill. The bombs started rocking the ship and Whelpley could tell that the ship was in big trouble. He knew how many bombs were scattered throughout the ship for the air strikes.
When Whelpley got to his GQ station, no one else was there. He waited, expecting other men to come rushing in right behind him, but they never came. In every GQ drill, there had been dozens of men who reported to that area, all standing around with nothing to do, just waiting for orders or the end of the drill. Now that there was a real emergency, Whelpley was the only one to show up.
It was an odd feeling to be alone at the height of a GQ alarm. Whelpley was out of breath from his sprint, bent over and trying to recover himself, expecting at any moment to see a crowd of men rush into the area. But he waited, and waited, and no one came.
What’s going on? Where is everybody? Geez, did I get something wrong here? No, that was GQ, no doubt about that. So where the hell is everybody? This is really weird.
Whelpley remembered all the GQ drills in which the men had put on oxygen-breathing apparatus and sat down next to the bulkhead to wait. There were guys lined up the whole length of the hallway. As Whelpley stood there all alone this time, he began to worry that something was desperately wrong with the ship. Something’s got to be really wrong if all those guys didn’t come to GQ. He could hear the explosions overhead, some of them nearly knocking him off his feet as they rattled through the ship. The longer he stood there, the more uncomfortable he became.
Maybe I oughta go see what’s happening out there. I’m sure not doing any good here…Hell, there’s not even anyone here to give me orders.
But the navy trains sailors to understand one very important point about general quarters: you go where you have been assigned to go, and then you wait for further orders or act on whatever emergency you find there. You do not just go looking for something to do. The whole idea of general quarters is to have people stationed at important points throughout the ship, ready to respond in whatever way might be needed. The idea of standing in an empty passageway while others fight a fire might be difficult to understand for those without military training, but the entire system of military discipline is based on young men and women doing what they are told, even if the reason is not apparent. Whelpley understood that, but his resolve was being tested.
Whelpley stood there for a long while, knowing that there was some sort of serious problem nearby but not knowing exactly what. He kept hoping the phone in the passageway would ring and someone would give him orders. Orders to do something, to go somewhere. Anything. He stared at the phone but it never made a sound.
The only thing he could think to do was to start closing hatches in that area. They had done that on a GQ drill once. Seemed to make sense now.
Finally, he heard another voice. Another sailor stuck his head out of an electronics room down the hall and yelled at him.
“Hey! I’m down here!” Whelpley shouted down the passageway. Finally, someone else!
“Well, I guess it’s you and me, kid,” the other sailor replied. “Just sit tight. This is where you’re supposed to be. If somebody needs you, they should come and get you.”
And that’s exactly what Whelpley did. For hours. He stood his watch in that empty passageway, doing exactly as he had been instructed. He waited for orders that would never come, all the time wondering what was going on on the flight deck and elsewhere. He could tell from the sounds, the rumbling explosions, and the cryptic messages on the public-address system that there was a bad fire and severe damage to the ship. He imagined the worst possible scenario.
God, whatever is going on out there isn’t too far away. It sounds like the whole damn ship is blowing up! There’s fire everywhere, I can tell that at least. It’s not just a normal fire, that’s for sure. They never said anything in training about explosions during a fire.
Must have been something really terrible to start all these fires. Could we be under attack? No way! How could the Vietnamese get out here to attack us?
His mind raced with possible outcomes, none of them good. I hope that fire doesn’t come any closer to me. I don’t want to be trapped here. I wonder if the smoke will kill me before I burn. I sure hope so.
The young sailor’s mind was filled with images from World War II movies in which the sailors had to abandon ship, scrambling over the side to face their fate in the sea. He wondered if the Forrestal would go down. And if it did, would he know in time?
Oh God, what if the ship sinks? Will I hear the abandon-ship call? I don’t want to be left behind!
Where do I get a life vest? I haven’t seen any around here! Where do I get a life vest???
Whelpley spent hours by himself, getting more and more scared, before he finally couldn’t stand it any longer and left his post at midday. He had spent about five hours standing there by himself, just waiting to see how he would die.