Gary Shaver, Robert Zwerlein, and Paul Friedman stayed on the Oriskany for the rest of the day as Julius and the other medical crew exhausted themselves providing advanced care for the injured and preparing them for transfer to the hospital ship that was rushing to meet them the next morning. As the day wore on and the most immediate needs were met, Julius left the sick bay to take a break. When he passed by one of the machines that generates fog foam and pumps it to firefighters’ hoses throughout the ship, he noticed that all the canisters of foam solution were gone. The Oriskany crew had sacrificed most of its own protection to aid the Forrestal.
He worried that the Oriskany was putting itself at risk if even a small fire broke out, and his heart jumped when he heard the fire alarm sound while he was in the shower. Julius raced to the fire site but found the situation was under control. He wearily went back to finish dressing, and then he returned to the sick bay. Plenty of wounded men still needed help.
Back on the Forrestal, the crew was winning its own battle with the flames. By midafternoon, the fires on the flight deck were extinguished and teams of impromptu firefighters were making progress with the ones that had wormed their way through the labyrinth of passageways and compartments deep within the ship. Most of the rear portion of the ship, all the way down the hull, had become a miserable mess of charred and smoking debris, seawater, fog foam, oil, and fuel.
After several hours of intense fear and activity, the men realized that they were not going to sink. But that realization did not come for quite a while. Many of the men expected to hear the captain call “Abandon ship!” over the 1MC at any moment and were prepared to go, some with life jackets at the ready. In the confusion and frenzy of the crisis, rumors even spread that the captain had already called for the crew to abandon the Forrestal, often leading those hearing it to a panicky fear that they would be left behind as the ship sank. The rumors always turned out to be false, and on the bridge, Captain Beling had no intention of giving up.
As the fires were controlled, but not completely extinguished, late that Saturday afternoon, Beling addressed the crew on the 1MC. While they continued their efforts to combat the fire and help their injured crewmates, Beling and other officers made frequent announcements on the 1MC either to pass on important information or, in the case of the captain, to bolster his crew’s morale.
“Men of Forrestal, this is the captain,” Beling began. “I want to let you know that Forrestal is again making twenty-five knots. We are going to rendezvous just before dusk with the USS Repose to get our hurt people off. I want to commend the whole crew today for your heroic actions. You certainly saved the ship with your bravery and you saved many, many lives. We will be back fighting very soon.”
Already, Beling’s mind was focused on how fast he could get his ship past this terrible incident and back to her job in Vietnam. He had no doubt that she could be repaired and back on duty. The damage was severe in portions of the ship, but the Forrestal was far from defeated.
Not everyone would share Beling’s determination and dogged optimism, however. The captain was looking at the ship as a whole, with the confidence of someone who has every bit of available information at his disposal. Others were looking only at the charred remains of the structures they had just extinguished, still so hot that molten metal dripped and a fire hose would just create a backlash of scalding steam. And the crisis was far from over. Even as the worst seemed past, fires continued to flare up again all over the ship. As Beling acknowledged in another address to the crew, one of the priorities at that point was to keep crewmen out of the dangerous areas as much as possible. It could be disastrous to have crewmen wander into an area thought safe and then have the fire flare up again.
“Men of Forrestal, this is the captain. I want to tell you that it is not all hunky-dory yet. We have got some uncontrolled fires, which at the moment are getting worse and they are all the way aft on the ship, both port and starboard, on the oh-two and oh-three levels. We need to have all personnel stay clear of that area unless they are actually engaged in fighting fires. Take that to heart, please! We are going to slow the ship so as to not fan these fires and we may be just a little late in meeting the hospital ship. Anyway, we have a very good capability ourselves in taking care of our wounded here. In summary, stay clear of the aft part of the ship.”
The fires continued to burn well into the night, though the crew had them under control by then. With the immediate crisis behind them, the leadership of the Forrestal had to turn some attention back to maintaining the daily needs of the ship and its crew, no small task when a carrier is in perfect condition and a major challenge when it is heavily damaged. As night began to fall on the Forrestal, Commander Ralph Smith, the executive officer a step below the captain, addressed the crew.
“Good evening, men. This is the executive officer. The fires are still stubbornly burning in the after section of the ship, therefore Forrestal is remaining at GQ. This is to maintain our fighting posture, to keep the ship sealed, and this gives us the best possibility of combating the fires and organizing our work. We are not out of the woods yet. We have much work to do tonight.” He went on with instructions to the crew on how to manage the ongoing crisis. In the forward half of the ship, those persons not physically engaged in firefighting or repair work could “stand easy” but had to remain at their GQ stations. All of the crew were instructed to take turns going to the bathroom and to the forward mess deck for chow. And in perhaps the best sign that life was inching its way back to some sense of normalcy, Smith started complaining that the ship was dirty. On any typical day, sailors spend a lot of their time cleaning the ship, so this was another indication that they were recovering, not floundering.
“I have examined, inspected the ship forward to frame one-fifty-four and I noted the decks are getting sloppy and wet from our tracking in from the firefighting area,” Smith said. “Tracking fog foam all over the decks has made them slippery and hazardous. We must clean the ship from frame one-fifty-four and forward. People in GQ stations, clean the decks and the area of the ship of your GQ responsibility. The officer or petty officer in charge of the GQ station will supervise this effort. In the island structure from oh-four and above, oh-four level and up, leave your GQ stations, proceed to the mess deck, and report to Lieutenant Kohler. That is Lieutenant Kohler in front of the engineering log room. He will organize your efforts in assisting to clear the mess deck forward and to restore it to the normal mess deck with tables and chairs for the crew’s eating. We want a special effort for the next hour and a half, two hours, to clean the ship. Get the berthing area squared away, and the mess deck in condition for chow. Thank you.”
Soon after, Smith came back on the 1MC to announce that trash should be dumped overboard at the number-one elevator. “There will be a marine guard posted there to control traffic, and please go single file to prevent another hazard of anyone falling over the side.”
Another inevitable task fell on Ken Killmeyer. Even before all the fires were tamed, the crew began gathering bodies. This task would go on for days, and two bodies were found even weeks later, wedged into inaccessible spots where they had been blown by an explosion. Killmeyer was still in the hangar bay after helping jettison bombs and other materials, and then helping move the wounded up to the helicopters on the flight deck. As he walked through the hangar bay, someone called him over to help.
“There’s a dead guy out here on the sponson,” he said. “Come here and give me a hand.”
Killmeyer could see that the sponson, a platform jutting out from the side of the ship like a veranda and directly under the flight-deck overhang, was still a smoky mess. He wasn’t eager to go out there, but he couldn’t really say no. Someone handed him an air mask, and he put it on, following the other man out there. Killmeyer stepped through the hatch and waited there, not able to see much, and the other man made his way farther out on the sponson. The smoke was still rolling off the flight deck from above, so Killmeyer could hardly see what they were doing. But as he bent close, he could see that the dead man was burned completely black, his arms outstretched in his last moments of life. Nothing was left on his charred body except his boots.
Two other men showed up with a light and a blanket. Killmeyer was horrified by the body and it took all his willpower to force himself to bend over and help move it. Relieved that the mask kept the others from seeing his terrified expression, Killmeyer helped roll the dead man onto the blanket so they could use it as a stretcher. But as soon as they took a few steps toward the hatch that led back into the hangar bay, he saw a problem. The man’s outstretched arms would not fit through the hatch. Already mortified by the task, Killmeyer turned his head as someone else wrapped a blanket around one of the man’s forearms and pushed down. Killmeyer flinched as he heard the bone break and the flesh crackle.
They carried the dead man to a spot in the hangar bay where bodies were being collected. Ten were there already, lying on stretchers or just on the hangar floor, a few in body bags. Blankets covered all the bodies except the ones in bags, but the upturned limbs and odd postures gave a clue that many of them had been badly burned. Several of the ship’s dentists were already there starting to look for identification on the bodies.
Retrieving the body from the sponson had shaken Killmeyer badly, and he started crying. But somehow he managed to keep from falling apart. Plenty of people were in the hangar bay by then, so he took a break and headed down to his division’s berthing area. Soon after he got there, he heard someone call for help with the curtain rigging stored nearby. His division often helped set up for ceremonies on board, so there was a supply of heavy blue curtains and stands. The curtain stands were heavy, so they wouldn’t tip over easily, and a petty officer in the division was gathering several men to take them to the hangar bay.
“We’ve got to rig the curtains around the bodies,” he explained.
Killmeyer joined the effort and soon found himself back with the bodies in the hangar bay, setting up the curtains to provide some degree of privacy and decorum as the bodies continued to gather in the makeshift morgue. The dentists worked behind the curtains, uncovering the bodies and gingerly looking for dog tags or any other identifying information. Once the curtains were up, Killmeyer was eager to leave again, but then an officer told him and a few others that they had to stay.
“Just guard the bodies,” he told them. “We’ve got too many guys coming up here and trying to see if their buddies are here. Just keep everybody out.”
Uneasily, Killmeyer and his companions took up positions around the rectangular curtained area and tried to keep people out. They weren’t very successful. The blue curtains just seemed to get everyone’s attention in the open hangar bay, so people were drawn over. Once they realized that the bodies were behind the curtains, some men were eager to see if a friend was back there. Killmeyer was a lanky young kid, not much of a match for an overwrought sailor insistent on finding his buddy. He said no and tried to explain his orders, and he even got in a shoving match when the men tried to push through. But he wasn’t much of an obstacle, and his heart wasn’t in it.
Then Killmeyer saw six marines walking through the hangar bay. They were part of the marine contingent whose tasks included guarding the nuclear bombs on board. Once it became clear that the nuclear bombs were not threatened by the fire, some of the marines went topside to volunteer their efforts. When they saw the bodies, they headed that way. Killmeyer was relieved to see them.
“We’re supposed to be guarding these bodies but we can’t stop these guys from going in,” Killmeyer called out to them. “I’m glad you guys are here!”
The marines took over and quickly established positions around the curtained area. They assumed “parade rest” positions and just stood there with .45s on their hips, as intimidating as marines always are. Killmeyer and his companions were grateful to be done with the task, and as they left, they saw that no one was fighting to see the bodies anymore.
On the evening of the fire, Beling decided it was time to officially address the loss. He waited until the situation was relatively calm, and then he went to the microphone on the bridge. Beling was burdened by the loss of so many men, and he began the address with a heavy heart.
“Men of Forrestal, this is the captain. There are no words that say what comes from our hearts tonight. Yet we must try.” Beling spoke slowly, evenly. “I ask you to join with me in this humble effort to express our thanks and our deep, deep debt to almighty God. Let us pray: Our heavenly Father, we see this day as one minute and yet a lifetime for all of us. We thank you for the courage of those that gave their lives in saving their shipmates today. We humbly ask you to grant them peace. And to their loved ones, the conciliation and strength to bear their loss. Help us to renew the faith we have in you. We thank you for our own lives. May we remember you as you have remembered us today. From our hearts we turn to you now, knowing that you have been at our sides in every minute of this day. Heavenly Father, help us to rebuild and re-man our ship so that our brothers who died today may not have made a fruitless sacrifice. Amen.”
Some of the crew were released from general quarters that night, though others remained at their stations until noon the next day. There was still much work to do, but release from general quarters meant the men had much more freedom to move about the ship and seek whatever aid and comfort they needed. For most of them, that meant rest. Thousands of men, weary and filthy, emotionally exhausted, had to find places to sleep. Those whose living quarters were undamaged welcomed stragglers to share their spaces, handing out spare changes of clothing and whatever else their crewmates needed.
Ed Roberts and some others from his division found that their berthing area had not been burned, but they didn’t want to sleep belowdecks; there was still too much uncertainty about what areas were safe. Instead, they found space out on the catwalks and lay there under the Tonkin Gulf night. Some men fell asleep immediately from exhaustion, but others lay quietly. Someone had found a portable radio and tuned in an American music broadcast from Vietnam.
After the song ended, a Vietnamese woman spoke to the crew in English. She was Hanoi Hannah, the propagandist that American soldiers and sailors had to tolerate if they wanted to hear the music from back home.
“Hello, a special hello to all the men on the American carrier Forrestal. What happened to you today, huh? Maybe a little accident? Surely you Americans realize now that even the fates are against you now. Why fight us? This is not your war. You are dying so the rich men in America can get richer.”
Nobody liked hearing it. “Listening to her is bullshit,” Roberts said, and rolled over.
For many of the crew, just lying down in a safe, almost quiet place was a godsend. But exhausted though they were, many could not sleep. They closed their eyes and waited, but their minds were full of images from their day.
And when sleep did come, it often brought nightmares. For a long time after the fire, the sailors would be awakened by fellow crew members screaming out in terror, pleading for their buddies to come out of the fire, or just crying. Those awakened by the screams might throw a pillow or yell a harsh command to shut up, but inside, they had more sympathy than they could express. They knew what it felt like, even if they managed to keep it inside.
The night overtook the Forrestal as the ship steamed on to meet the Repose hospital ship, the Oriskany and the Bon Homme Richard following with many of the Forrestal’s wounded. The men still at general quarters were exhausted and emotionally drained, but they muddled on through their chores or just tried to stay awake. For many, it was hours or even days before they realized the extent of the crisis they had just survived, and many marveled at how close they had come to dying. There was little opportunity to talk or pass on scuttlebutt while they were at their stations, but when they took their turns heading to the mess hall for chow or when someone came through their compartment on the way to somewhere else, some crew members eagerly asked about news from other divisions, other parts of the ship.
“How bad was it there? Did you see it? I heard the whole aft portion is gone.”
And some men asked about specific crewmen, their buddies who were working near the origin of the fire. Sometimes they would find out the guy was just fine, and sometimes they wouldn’t learn anything for a long while. A great many of the Forrestal sailors would be reluctant to discuss anything about the fire for a long while after. Those who survived seemed to avoid some of the obvious discussions about how bad it all had been, who had been killed, and the horrors they had witnessed themselves. They just avoided talking about it all, as if talking about it made it real.
The last major fire was extinguished at 4 A.M. on July 30. On the way to meet the hospital ship that day, with smoke still seeping from her burned decks, the Forrestal rendezvoused with another carrier, the USS Intrepid. The Intrepid was taking over the duties scheduled for the Forrestal on Yankee Station, but the arrival of the carrier was a sad moment for Beling. His ship was being relieved after only four and a half days of combat, sent home like a rookie who couldn’t take the heat. Beling knew that wasn’t the case, but he cringed every time he imagined how others were looking at his ship. As the two ships steamed toward each other for a predetermined point where some necessary supplies would be transferred to the Intrepid, Beling pushed his ship at a brisk twenty-seven knots. He was proud that the damaged Forrestal could produce such speed without having to use more than four of the ship’s eight boilers. He waited until the two ships were close enough to see each other. When the Intrepid was in range, Beling ordered a visual message flashed to the other ship’s captain, John Fair, a friend from way back.
“John, how’s this look on four boilers?” was the greeting.
After the transfer, the Forrestal steamed on with the Oriskany and the Bon Homme Richard. The three carriers rendezvoused with the hospital ship Repose the next morning at a featureless spot in the waters off of Vietnam. The big white ship had rushed at top speed from its station on the coast, where it had been treating soldiers wounded in the jungle fighting. An ungainly big white box on water, with a prominent red cross painted several stories high on the side, the Repose clearly was not a fighting vessel. On board, she had dozens of doctors, some of the most sophisticated medical equipment in the world, and plenty of room for the Forrestal’s wounded. She was needed.
The crews of the aircraft carriers had prepared for this moment and were ready to transfer patients almost as soon as the hospital ship came within sight. The helicopters swarmed the carriers again, this time in a more orderly and deliberate fashion than the previous day’s rescue efforts. Much of the activity was centered on the Oriskany, where the most seriously wounded had already been sent. The Oriskany crew had stabilized the men and performed some of the most urgently needed surgery, but the patients still needed much more sophisticated care on the Repose. The helicopters touched down on the Oriskany deck over and over again, ferrying terribly burned and mutilated young men to the doctors and nurses waiting on the Repose. Once more, Gary Shaver, Robert Zwerlein, and Paul Friedman were loaded onto helicopters and taken a step farther from the Forrestal.
Several times, Shaver woke up on the Repose to find the actor Robert Stack, better known as Eliot Ness of the television show The Untouchables, sitting by his bedside, talking to him, soothing him. A popular celebrity, Stack was touring Vietnam to greet the troops and had volunteered to see the wounded on the Repose. By then, Shaver’s pain was controlled enough that he could briefly speak to Stack before passing out again. Paul Friedman got even luckier. He had his picture taken while Connie Francis was singing to him.
The Repose offered advanced care, but for many of the wounded, the long journey had just begun. The terrible wounds they suffered would lead to a series of operations, long and slow recuperations, excruciating physical therapy, and prolonged stays in hospitals.
Transferring the wounded to the Repose was a relief to Captain Beling because he could rest easy that his injured men were in the best hands, but also because he could get back to his primary job of running the Forrestal. Men were finally getting a breather throughout the ship, but not in damage control. The day after the blaze started, Rowland and his crew still had plenty to do, keeping their eyes on each remaining hot spot in the ship and trying hard to keep anyone else from falling prey to the Forrestal fire. The mess left by the previous day’s fires was creating all sorts of hazards, and one of the worst was chlorine gas. The millions of gallons of seawater sprayed from fire hoses and pumped into the hangar bays had found its way to a battery-storage compartment, where it mixed with the acid from broken batteries to form deadly chlorine gas.
“There is suspected chlorine gas in compartment 03-217-4Quebec,” Rowland cautioned over the 1MC address system. His voice sounded weary, almost exasperated. “All hands are cautioned to stay clear of the area. Cautioned to stay forward of frame two-ten. We don’t want to have to carry out any more people that went up to help and passed out. Chlorine gas is deadly and it is up there!”
Despite the warnings from Rowland and others in the area, three men charged into one of the compartments filled with chlorine gas because they mistakenly thought people were trapped there. They quickly succumbed to the gas and were the last three men to die.
By the time he felt confident enough to leave his post on Sunday, Merv Rowland had been on duty in damage control for seventeen hours, and he had been awake nearly forty-five hours because he had been up the night before working on a machinery repair. The Benzedrine from the sick bay had kept him buzzing along and alert enough to do his job, but now that he could stand down, he felt like hell. Rowland was dog-tired but jittery, his eyes wide open but eager to close. His nerves were shot and his hands trembled.
The drug still had him firmly in its grip, propelling him along despite the weariness he felt in every inch of his body, forcing him to hear and see every little thing around him despite his desire to just stop. Thinking he might be able to rest if he got some food, Rowland made his way to one of the mess halls. A lot of others were there in the early morning, milling around and talking about what had just happened to the ship. The mess hall had become a gathering spot for many of the crew, including some of the aviators, who were nicknamed “Airedales.” As Rowland made his way through the line and picked up some chow, a few of the men recognized him and knew he could answer all their questions. They waited until he took his tray over to a table and started to sit down, and then someone from another table asked, “Hey, what’s the story? What really happened up there?”
The combination of extreme fatigue, stress, and the drug’s effects made Rowland nervous and cranky, not a good combination for an officer already known for his hot temper.
“I’ll tell you what happened. Those goddamn Airedales blew up the ship!”
The room fell silent. All of Rowland’s frustrations from the previous day were coming out at once, and he couldn’t stop them. The aviators in the room, not exactly a shy, retiring lot themselves, took exception to Rowland’s comment. One of them started to reply, “You’re full of…,” but whatever else he said was lost in the noise as Rowland leapt off his seat and lunged for the man. Rowland was ready for a fight; once the man opened his mouth to speak, Rowland considered it a personal affront and disrespectful to the ship he had just fought so hard to save. Rowland’s mind was a mess, and that aviator had just volunteered to be the whipping boy for everything the old man was mad about.
Rowland swung wildly and had just gotten his hands around the aviator’s throat when a dozen others piled on them and tried to pull Rowland off.
“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Rowland roared, his eyes a frightful indicator that he meant what he said.
It took several men to pull him off—with one grabbing him from behind and pulling hard on his neck—but the aviator survived. The men made Rowland sit down as the aviator’s buddies hustled him out of the room, but Rowland was still grumbling and yelling at the man. Rowland was breathing like a racehorse and his eyes were wide with adrenaline. The men who pulled him off the aviator realized that Rowland needed help, so they convinced him to walk with them down to the sick bay.
When he got there, one of the doctors could see what bad shape Rowland was in. He told the other men to leave and got Rowland to sit down for a minute. The doctor went to a locked cabinet and then came back.
“Okay, I’ve got some medicine for you,” he said.
“I don’t want your medicine!” Rowland snapped. “I’ve been taking your goddamn medicine and I’m done with it!”
“This is different, Merv. This is what you need.”
Then Rowland could see that the doctor had brought out a big bottle of one-hundred proof brandy, kept in the sick bay strictly for “medicinal purposes.” Otherwise, alcohol was forbidden on the ship. He filled a water glass with the brandy and handed it over. The old navy officer didn’t need any more prompting. He took the glass and drank it all straight down as if it were water.
“Okay, that ought to help,” the doctor said. “Now let’s get you back to your quarters.”
The doctor walked Rowland back to his quarters and told him to just go to bed. The brandy was taking effect by then and overwhelming the Benzedrine. Rowland didn’t bother to undress and just collapsed on his bed. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Rowland slept for twenty hours. When he finally awoke, he was disoriented and didn’t know how long he had slept. He reached for the phone by his bed to call damage control and get a report, but when he picked up the receiver, nothing. It was dead. Awww shit. What’s that mean?
He picked himself up off the bed, every muscle protesting after the long rest, and staggered to the door of his room. His mind was foggy. When he opened it, he was surprised to see an armed marine standing there.
Holy shit…Captain’s put a guard at my door.
Rowland stood there for a moment trying to figure out what was happening. His mind was still foggy, but there was only one reason a marine would be guarding him.
I must have really screwed up. Wait a minute, something happened in the mess hall. Did I beat the shit out of somebody?…What did I do in that mess hall?
The marine just looked at Rowland and said, “Good morning, sir.” Rowland wasn’t sure what he should say in return, but he spoke anyway.
“Yeah…Well, what in the hell are you doing here?” Rowland demanded.
“The captain told me to stand here and not let anybody knock on your door until you open the door yourself and come out happy. They disconnected your phones, too, sir.”
Rowland thought about it for a minute and realized he wasn’t under arrest.
“Okay, well…I’m all done.”
“Yes sir,” the marine replied, and immediately started down the hall. Rowland stood in the doorway and watched him leave, still trying to remember what happened in the mess hall.
Beling knew exactly what Rowland had done in the mess hall, but he understood why. In the day after the fire, the crew began tallying up the number of dead and wounded, plus the physical damage to the ship. Some of the figures would not be complete until later, when there was time to assess the damage more closely and some of the seriously wounded had passed away, but in the end, the numbers were disturbing: 134 men dead or missing, 161 seriously injured. Of 134 dead or missing, 18 were listed as missing and presumed dead. The crew and the other ships recovered the remains of what appeared to be between twelve and fourteen bodies, so four to six bodies were lost completely. Most of the death certificates listed the cause of death as “injuries, multiple, extreme.” Many of the others died from burns, some from smoke inhalation, a few from chlorine gas, and some drowned as they were trapped in flooded compartments.
The ship had suffered $72.2 million in damage, including the loss of twenty-one aircraft and damage to forty more. Some of the planes pushed overboard that day cost more than five million dollars apiece, others two million dollars each. The ordnance destroyed or jettisoned during the fire was valued at just under two million dollars.
As soon as word reached the United States, the Forrestal fire was front-page news. It was no surprise that everyone wanted to know more about what happened on Yankee Station. Even those who didn’t follow the war closely or who didn’t have a particular interest in the Forrestal wanted to know how an American carrier could shoot itself in the foot and lose 134 men. The New York Times featured the fire as its lead front-page story on Saturday, July 29, the day the fire started, reporting only the earliest information that a “raging fire” broke out on the carrier and that deaths were expected. “It would have been impossible to avoid deaths,” a military spokesman said.
By Sunday, the Times had photos of the carrier ablaze and reported that at least seventy crew were killed and the “craft is out of action.” Other papers carried similar coverage, and the August issue of Life magazine devoted its cover to a photo of flames and smoke billowing from behind planes parked on the Forrestal. Many of the early accounts got the details wrong, understandable because the event was chaotic and the information relayed from around the world. In particular, the early accounts attributed the cause of the fire to an auxiliary fuel tank dropping off of John McCain’s plane apparently for no reason, the fuel then igniting from either a plane’s exhaust or “the superheated steam” of the catapult launching system. Once it became clear that a rocket had fired, the initial theories were that a plane’s hot exhaust or the exhaust of a nearby tractor had overheated the rockets on another plane, causing one to fire. One story in the Times described the cause as a plane experiencing “an extreme wet start. This malfunction, comparable to what happens when a cigarette lighter has been overfilled, occurs about once a week on attack carriers, but almost never so severely as it did on Saturday.”
That theory was soon discarded, but by then the fire was no longer front-page news. Except in the Norfolk area, where so many families had relatives on the ship, the story was quickly shouldered aside by the other major news of 1967. President Johnson held a news conference on July 31 and did not mention the Forrestal tragedy. None of the reporters brought it up either. Three days later Johnson announced that he was sending 45,000 more men to Vietnam, bringing the total to 525,000. By August 1, just three days after the fire, the Times front page featured “Shots Fired in Washington as Negro Youths Rampage” and “Milwaukee Calm After Negro Riot.” Another story on the front that same day, “Forrestal Blaze Cuts Down Raids in North Vietnam,” related the difficulty in continuing air raids on Vietnam without the Forrestal. That was one of the last front-page reports on the fire in the Times.
For some on the Forrestal, a difficult task was still in front of them. Bob Kohler, the ship’s administration officer, was in charge of sending messages to the navy offices back home about who was dead and who was missing. He held shipwide head counts every few hours to see if the missing men could be accounted for; if a man who was previously thought missing was found, Kohler insisted that he personally report to him and verify his identity. Kohler wanted to minimize any chance of sending a family bad information.
Many of the crew were eager to let their families know they were okay, but the communications available to them in 1967 were not of much help. The only way to make contact quickly was by telephone, and patching through a call from a ship off the coast of Vietnam to some little town in Minnesota was a frustrating endeavor. And even when such a call was possible it meant standing in line for hours. For those who got through, the call was usually brief, with a young sailor saying, “Mom, I’m okay. I made it okay,” and then, “Don’t cry, Mom. I’ll be home soon.” Some gave their wives a list of people they knew were okay, so they could spread the word among those waiting in Norfolk.
Getting word to the families was complicated because some families were on summer vacations and some wives were living with distant relatives while their husbands were away at sea. The news reports were brief at first, indicating only that the Forrestal had suffered some sort of bad fire on board. It would be a few days before details emerged and much longer before the media would get access to a reliable list of the dead and wounded. And then the news coverage would fade quickly as the country turned its attention to race riots and other news from Vietnam.
For many of the families, the news gave them only enough information to make them worry that their son, brother, or husband was among the dead or wounded. The worry could go on for days as they waited. Even Captain Beling’s wife knew little from the outset.
On the Saturday of the fire, Eve Beling had been moving the family from one home to another, having just sent the moving van off with the final load of furniture from the house. The Belings’ oldest son was going off to college that same day, and he kissed his mother goodbye and drove off in his little MG about the same time as the moving van. Eve Beling was left standing in front of the empty house, about to leave herself, when she caught sight of the last thing a navy wife ever wants to see—a navy car driving up to the house with a stern-faced officer and a chaplain. Her heart pounded as she waited for them to pull up and walk the short distance to where she was waiting.
“Mrs. Beling, may we go inside?” the officer asked.
“Well, no. There’s no furniture,” she said, trying to keep her composure.
“Yes ma’am, I see. Could we sit down right here, then?”
She sat with the officer and the chaplain on the front steps of the house, and listened quietly as the officer told her about a fire.
“What about John? Is John okay?”
“We actually don’t know yet, ma’am. We’re still getting information from the Forrestal, and all we know right now is that there were some deaths and injuries. Mrs. Beling, we wanted you to know about this as soon as possible.”
Beling’s son heard about the fire on the car radio on the way to school. It would be days before the navy could confirm that Beling was safe, days in which Eve Beling put on a strong face and appeared confident. She had to, because many of the wives of the Forrestal crew looked to her for leadership on the home front, for information and support that helped the wives get through their long stints without a husband at home.
Other families all over the country, but mostly the East Coast, were getting visits from naval officers as officials received confirmations of the dead and wounded sailors. Bill and Ruth Zwerlein, Robert Zwerlein’s parents, were in Ohio for a friend’s wedding on the day of the fire. Some of the wedding attendees had heard about it on the radio, but no one wanted to mention it to the Zwerleins. They were having such a good time, and no one wanted to be the one to break the news.
Two of their sons were working at the family’s Tastee-Freez back home when they heard about the Forrestal fire on the radio. That evening, they called their parents in Ohio. Bill and Ruth were concerned, but they thought maybe their Bobby would be fine. After all, he had had all that training as a volunteer firefighter. The news reports sounded bad, but they kept hoping that Bobby had been spared.
“He’s a fireman,” Ruth said more than once. “He’ll know what to do.”
They flew home from Ohio immediately, but there was no news about Bobby until Monday. Then a navy car pulled up to the Tastee-Freez and an officer came in, causing the shop to fall silent. Everyone in town knew that Bobby was on the troubled ship.
The officer asked to speak with the Zwerleins privately, and when they sat down, he dashed their hopes.
“Reports from the Forrestal indicate that your son has been wounded. He was transferred to a hospital ship and his condition is listed as guarded.”
Ruth began to cry and Bill worked hard not to, fidgeting and avoiding the officer’s eyes. They asked what happened and the officer explained that there had been a major fire on the flight deck and their son had been caught up in it somehow. The Zwerleins sat for a minute, Ruth crying and Bill trying to console her. After a minute, he had to ask.
“Was he burned?” Bill said quietly.
“Yes sir, the report is that he was badly burned. His condition is listed as guarded.”
Their hearts fell. Ruth sobbed. The officer promised that the navy would keep in touch and pass on any more information as it came in. But no more information came for the next couple of days. As they waited and worried, Bill and Ruth realized that their son might be dying, alone. The idea tore at them, with Ruth particularly besieged by the idea that her Bobby was hurting and needed his mother. She was tortured by the image of him lying on the hospital ship with terrible burns, in pain and so alone, craving the kind of comfort that can come only from the gentle touch of a mother.
The Zwerleins decided that they could not just sit and wait. They contacted a family friend who had connections with the navy and started inquiring about how they could go to Vietnam. If their son was dying, they needed to be there. They were ready to get on a plane.
But before they could explore that option very much, the naval officer returned to the Tastee-Freez at 11 A.M. one day. Ruth was next door at the beauty parlor, trying to carry on while she worried about her Bobby. When the naval officer appeared again, everyone on the street noticed. There was a hush as Ruth left the beauty parlor and went next door to their shop, everyone anticipating major news, good or bad.
When Bill and Ruth were together, the officer told them the news. Bobby had died on the hospital ship.
For Ken Killmeyer’s parents, the news was much better. He had managed to call them soon after the fire, telling them he was okay. It was clearly a relief to his mother, who broke down in tears when she heard his voice. He promised he would write with more details and then he would be home soon.
In the days after the fire, Killmeyer found time to finish the letter he had been writing when the fire broke out. He retrieved it from where he had stuffed it under his bunk for safekeeping and sat down to complete it.
He had been writing his six-year-old sister, but after the fire the letter turned into something a six-year-old shouldn’t read. The page started out with “Dear Patty, Thank you so much for your letter. You don’t know how much that letter means out here. Well, we took on bombs last night. Tonight fuel and tomorrow more bombs. I am very tired.”
The letter went on to describe the man overboard that interrupted his sleep, and said the man had not been recovered. “They left two destroyers to search for him, but there is no chance. W…”
General quarters was called on that last “W.” Then Killmeyer resumed writing after the fire. At the very top of the first page, he added “I was writing this letter when it all started. Thank God I am alive.”
Halfway down the second page, he picked up the letter again. “Right here is where I stopped writing when fire quarters was called away. I don’t have a fire quarters station, so I just sat and was going to keep writing when general quarters stations [sounded]. When I was running aft to my GQ station they said over the 1MC that there was a fire on the flight deck aft. From what I can remember I was about 10 feet away from the hatch I showed you where I go down to the magazine,” he wrote, referring to a family day visit when he had shown his parents where he worked on the ship. “When the first bomb went off and then another, everybody froze in their tracks. It was coming from overhead and down the passageway. I was never so scared. I thought we would all be dead soon.”
Killmeyer went on for four pages explaining what he did during the fire, including helping to push planes overboard and his grisly assignment to recover the burned body. After the detailed account of his experiences, he told his family how he had escaped injury right up to the end of the day. Finally, an officer had taken a look at the wet, bedraggled kid and told him to take a rest.
“A guy came and gave me a box of K rations and I cut my finger open on the can”—a small irony that would stick with him for years. “I am going to church. Love, Ken.”
Ken’s father wrote him back to say how grateful he was that Ken had survived and how proud the family was of Ken’s work. It was the first time his father had ever written him.
Beling was adamant that his ship was not defeated. He could not stomach the idea that the Forrestal had been brought to its knees by an accident on board, the East Coast navy’s first carrier in Vietnam sent limping home like a wounded puppy after only four days of combat. This was, at minimum, a matter of pride, and Beling would argue with anyone that it was more than that. From touring the damaged areas and studying the engineers’ assessments, he had determined that the ship looked a lot worse off than she actually was, and there was no question in his mind that he could get her back to fighting form. Rowland wasn’t so sure, but he agreed that the damage looked worse than it was.
As soon as Washington and Norfolk got word of how serious the accident had been, officials there started suggesting that the ship should just come home for a major overhaul. Beling was still arguing with them when they ordered him to go to Subic Bay for an assessment, making it clear that they expected the Forrestal to leave Vietnam and probably never return.
Beling was determined to avoid that indignity, not only for himself but also for his crew, so he kept pleading his case with the navy. The answer was always the same: head to Subic Bay and then probably on home to Norfolk. Beling still didn’t give up hope, though.
It sounds bad to them now, but maybe once we get to Subic and clear away some of this mess, they’ll see that the damage isn’t so bad. Maybe we can do some repairs and get back to work here.
Admiral Lanham admired Beling’s determination, but he could see that the Forrestal would be tied to a dock for a long while in repairs, either in Norfolk or in Subic Bay. So he made arrangements to return to the States, where he could be of more use. Lanham flew off of the Forrestal and on to the United States, not bothering to make the long journey back with the carrier, even though she had been his flagship. Most of the crew also were eager to get home and see their loved ones, but Captain Beling let them know he had other intentions.
On Sunday morning, Rowland was already sound asleep when the 1MC crackled to life with Beling’s calm, carefully measured words.
“Men of Forrestal, this is the captain. I want to say a few words to you this morning to sum up the situation that exists at this time and where we are going forward in the future. However, before I do so, the first thing I want to do is to read to you a message which I have just received from the president of the United States. I quote, ‘The following is a personal message from the president to Captain John K. Beling, commanding officer of the USS Forrestal. I want you and the men of your command to know that the thoughts of the American people are with you at this tragic time. We all feel a great sense of personal loss. Your devotion to duty and the courage of your men have not gone unnoticed. The sacrifices that they have made shall not be in vain.’ End of quote. I will answer that on your behalf this morning.
“Now, what for the future. The ship is extensively damaged in the upper after portion. We are going to have to rip off the after section of the flight deck, and most of the structural work down to the main deck will have to be renewed. I think that that is very minor damage for what the ship has been through. It now appears that she sustained explosions of six [later determined to be nine] one-thousand-pound bombs, among other things. A very tough ship. And for your information, the two destroyers which started up to escort us to Subic yesterday are now two hundred and fifty miles behind and we are only using half of the ship’s boilers. So there is a lot of spirit left in Forrestal. Today at thirteen-hundred we will have a memorial service for those of our comrades who gave their lives for their country. After that we will go into Subic with our band playing and our flag flying. Then we will get started getting fixed. We will be met by a team of experts who will help us assess the damage and where it can best and most quickly be fixed. I do not know at this time whether the damage will be fixed in Japan or on the West Coast. Needless to say, we want to do it in the place where it can be fixed fastest so we can get back on the line.”
After his talk, Beling realized that he had a golden opportunity to make his case and keep the Forrestal in the fight. He had personally received a message from the president of the United States that morning expressing condolences for the tragedy. Wouldn’t it be rude not to reply?
Actually, Beling was rationalizing his own misgivings. He knew that it would be a very cheeky move to make such a suggestion directly to the president when it flatly contradicted the navy’s position. But he was willing to take that risk to keep the Forrestal in the fight. Beling knew that President Johnson and his advisers would welcome a chance to keep the carrier in Vietnam, and he was willing to live with the fallout from the navy. He was willing to take the chance because he felt he owed it to his men of Forrestal, and because he was already thinking that his career might have ended when 134 men died on his watch.
But Beling didn’t want to use his trump card too early. He would wait and see if he needed it.
As soon as they had time to catch a breath and start asking questions, the crew tried to figure out what had happened on Saturday morning. On the trip to Subic Bay, the ship’s ordnance specialists traced the fire back to its first moments. By interviewing surviving crew members who witnessed the rocket fire, and by reviewing the footage from the flight-deck camera, the Forrestal’s investigators pieced together the initial series of events and realized that a Zuni had hit one of the planes on the opposite side of the ship, leading to the fire. How and why the rocket could have fired was more of a mystery, but more investigations would follow once the carrier reached Subic Bay and Norfolk.
The carrier’s arrival in Subic Bay, two days after the fire, drew everyone’s attention. Those working at Subic Bay or there from other ships were eager to get a look at the big ship and see for themselves how bad the accident had been. They crowded the dock to get a look at the burned ship and as the Forrestal drew near, they heard a sound that sent chills down their spines.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Ringing out across the water that separated them, the alarms reached those on the dock, signaling that yet another fire had flared up within the ship, two days after the ordeal began. They had to wait while the fire was brought under control, and only then was the Forrestal given permission to dock. Soon after, fifty-two canvas bags containing bodies were wrapped in American flags and borne off the carrier with quiet ceremony. Even then, the tragedy was not yet complete. Crew were still cutting through some mangled portions of the ship looking for more bodies, and smoldering materials still flared up.
While the ship was in Subic Bay for the initial repairs, the crew was allowed liberty for the first time in weeks. Free to roam the Subic Bay bars and nightclubs, the men stood out from the other sailors there because they wore their denim work clothes instead of the spotless dress uniforms usually required for liberty calls. The Forrestal sailors couldn’t put together enough dress uniforms for everyone after the fire, and that was just fine with them. Going on liberty in their casual work clothes was a treat.
Ed Roberts ended up at a bar with a few of his workmates, and they were more than ready to blow off some steam. When they sat down at a table, someone pointed out a big chart hanging over the bar listing dozens of drinks available, all for about forty cents each. As soon as they saw the chart, they agreed: That’s what we’re having. We’re going to have one of all those drinks.
And so they started drinking. They made it through only about seven or eight different drinks, but that was plenty. At one point, one of the guys held up a fried chicken leg and said, “Hey, here’s Scotty’s foot!” before taking a big bite out of it. It was a reference to their buddy who had lost most of his foot in the fire. The joke was tasteless and not even very funny, but the guys laughed hysterically. They needed to.
Beling was not hitting the bars. He oversaw the inspection of his ship by the engineers at Subic, taking every opportunity to show them how well the ship had withstood the damage. As much as he could, he tried to persuade them that Forrestal could get back in the fight. Though they sympathized with Beling, it was clear to everyone that the damage was just too extensive. The navy’s instructions were just what Beling expected: Bring the ship home to Norfolk.
Well, okay, then. I’ve got nothing to lose.
So Beling went ahead with his plan and sent his message to the White House. He reported that inspections in Subic Bay show “our damage isn’t anywhere near as bad as we had thought, and if we had six weeks in a Japanese shipyard and replacement of our aircraft, we could operate with at least 80 percent of our normal ability.” Beling was stretching the truth a bit, putting an extremely optimistic spin on the engineers’ assessments.
Beling waited anxiously for a reply, expecting the Pentagon to send a sharp retort about protocol. He only hoped that the scolding would be accompanied by a change in his orders. But Beling never heard back and the navy’s orders were not changed. His gambit had not paid off, but there also was no punishment for his cocky maneuver. At least not right away.
With some of its structural mess cleaned up at Subic Bay, the Forrestal headed back to its home port in Norfolk—a journey of thirty-four days. Rear Admiral Forsyth Massey, a highly experienced carrier aviation officer, had met the Forrestal at Subic Bay and embarked to begin the navy’s official investigation of the fire. Beling knew Massey well and respected him as a capable officer. Massey and his aides would spend the ensuing month inspecting the damage, interviewing witnesses, and conducting tests. They also reconstructed much of the scene on the flight deck and conducted a thorough review of the ship’s policies, procedures, and overall readiness.
For much of the voyage, Beling received his orders from the Pacific Fleet command, which instructed him to steam at twenty-two knots. That was a respectable pace for any carrier, and Beling had no trouble keeping up the speed. He pointed out to anyone who would listen that the ship was holding up just fine, not even straining to make the twenty-two knots.
Speed meant power. He was happy to show anyone who was watching that the Forrestal was still a fearsome warship. But when they crossed the “chop line” where the Atlantic Fleet command took over, Beling’s new orders were to proceed at a more leisurely sixteen knots. He had no choice but to comply, even though it riled him.
First they stopped in Florida to off-load some planes based there and then headed up the coast. When the carrier left the Florida port and headed north, the fleet command was supposed to issue a new order to maintain sixteen knots, but somehow that order never came. With no orders constraining him, Beling immediately kicked the ship’s speed to an astonishing thirty knots. By God, he was going to head into the Forrestal’s home port with enough speed to dispel any notions that the ship was almost dead in the water.
Soon after leaving for Norfolk, Beling received word that a Soviet spy ship was shadowing them, not an uncommon occurrence even so close to home. Knowing that the sub had been sent to take a look at the damage on the big American warship, the cocky captain couldn’t resist sending a message dripping with bravado.
“Let me know if you require assistance,” Beling sent by blinking light. He knew the Soviet ship would get his meaning quite clearly.
As the ship neared Norfolk, Beling had one more trick up his sleeve. The Forrestal still had six A-6 attack aircraft in pristine condition. Beling was thinking of one more way to help the ship save face, but this he had to clear with Admiral Lanham, who had flown out to rejoin the Forrestal as it neared Norfolk. Beling went to the admiral’s quarters one evening and asked to speak with him. Lanham was in his pajamas when Beling entered his cabin.
“So what is it, John?”
“I want to launch all six of those aircraft as we’re coming up the channel and approaching the dock,” Beling explained. He said it as if he was certain it was a fine idea and just needed Lanham’s sign-off.
The admiral looked at Beling for a minute and then said, “John, are you crazy?”
“Oh, the forward catapults are fine, no damage at all,” Beling said. “We can do it. It’ll show that the ship’s not as bad off as everyone thinks.”
The admiral understood Beling’s motivation, but he had to be the voice of reason.
“John, if anything goes wrong, which it could, just think what they would do to you. And it would be my butt, too. What if the bridle snaps and the plane goes in the water? Wouldn’t that be great, with a thousand or so visitors and crew members’ family watching.”
Beling tried to think of a response, but then reluctantly decided to just let it go. He agreed with the admiral that the plan was too risky. At least he felt like he had done all he could to preserve the ship’s honor.
When the ship arrived in Norfolk, a crowd of three thousand people was waiting. A navy band played as crew members’ families strained for a look at the sailors lining the rim of the flight deck, forward of the damage. Most of them were in blue denim work clothes instead of the dress whites they normally would wear for such a homecoming.
Those awaiting the Forrestal had heard about the damage and most had seen pictures in the newspaper, but the sight of the once mighty carrier pulling up to the dock was still shocking, even after the crew had cleared away the burned wreckage and cleaned up the ship as much as possible. Joyous grins turned to looks of shock and concern as the Forrestal came into view.
Eve Beling and her children were the first to come on board after she docked. The captain couldn’t leave the ship right away, but his family wanted to see him. When a reporter tried to bound up the gangplank first, a burly marine stepped into his path and told him, in terms probably still ringing in the reporter’s ears, that the captain’s family was boarding first.
The crew was allowed to disembark and greet their waiting families. The captain spoke to the press soon after returning and praised his crew as a “concrete demonstration of the worth of American youth,” an especially meaningful compliment at a time when the country was starting to see some young people as ill-mannered and unpatriotic. Beling went on to say “there were many examples of heroism” and “not one single example of cowardice.”
Continuing his effort to lessen the public impact of the disaster, Beling told the press that the Forrestal was “in good shape except for the after section.” He put on an optimistic face for the world, but when he turned away, Beling’s loss threatened to consume him. The return was not what Beling had envisioned months earlier when the Forrestal first sailed away to its destiny. Now she was home, but as a sad imitation of her former glory. And more important, she had returned without nearly three hundred of her crew.
Beling knew someone had to be held responsible.