As always, the onset of the fall monsoon curtailed strikes against the North. September’s daily rate of four hundred plus sorties, the highest recorded in 1966, fell off in October and remained low for the remainder of the year. Reduced operations did not, however, lessen the danger. During the first three and a half weeks of October, Oriskany launched strikes against ammunition dumps, rail lines, and bypasses. In this period, the air wing lost four planes in combat and two to operational loss, with four fatalities. Unfortunately, VA-152 bore the brunt, suffering three of those fatalities. Lt. (junior grade) James Beene was lost at sea after he flew into the water during a dark night laced with thunderstorms. A search of the area proved futile, yielding only an oil slick on the surface of the ocean that marked his watery grave. Beene had cheated death earlier in the cruise. On the night of 25 August, he ditched his Skyraider immediately in front of Oriskany following a malfunction during the catapult launch. The ship nearly ran him over before he was plucked from the ocean. In less than a week, VA-152 lost both Lt. Jack Feldhaus and Ens. Darwin Thomas to AAA. The loss of Feldhaus had been particularly troubling, as he had been a courageous leader in the cockpit and the ready room, and his loss was felt by all. The skies over North Vietnam had become very dangerous for the Skyraiders.
Oriskany had been initially scheduled to leave the line on 15 October, but unforeseen circumstances caused an extension. USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42) needed emergency repairs on one of her screwed propellers. The only suitable port capable of performing the work was in Yokosuka, Japan, so Oriskany remained until she was repaired. With Roosevelt finally back on Yankee Station, Oriskany was scheduled to head for Hong Kong on 27 October. The ship had been on the line for over a month, and the crew was tired. Only a few days stood between them and a well-deserved respite. Unfortunately, those days were frustrated by the monsoon season, which was in full swing. Heavy cloud cover and low ceilings frequently hampered flight operations. Rain further hindered the already limited visibility. On 23 October poor weather canceled flight operations throughout the gulf. Instead of a reprieve, it meant more work as men downloaded ordnance from airplanes and returned it to the ship’s magazines. The next day was spent conducting a day-long UNREP before the crew commenced midnight-to-noon flight operations. Once again, inclement weather canceled flight operations, and the crew went through the same process of downloading and storing ordnance.
The evening of 25 October proved to be a repeat of the previous two nights. Airplanes were loaded and fueled in preparation for flight operations on 26 October. Though the weather remained uncooperative, aviators briefed and waited for the word to launch. Midnight came and went with no word as they waited in their ready rooms. Finally, at 0130 operations were suspended until 0730. At 0630 a weather reconnaissance flight from Constellation would launch and report if daytime flights could proceed. New orders were relayed throughout the ship, from the flight deck to ready rooms and ordnance-handling stations. Pilots went to bed in a vain attempt to catch some precious sleep. And for the third time in four days, ordnancemen began the arduous task of downloading ordnance so that it could be properly stowed, included dozens of Mk 24 parachute flares loaded on Skyhawks and Skyraiders. The flares, critical for nighttime armed reconnaissance missions, were not used during daytime. As sailors downloaded the flares, they placed them on skids (wheeled dollies used to move ordnance about the flight deck) before sending them to the hangar deck for off-loading and storage.
The job of stowing the 117 downloaded flares fell upon twenty-year-old seaman apprentice John Gervais, who, three years earlier, had dropped out of high school and joined the Naval Reserves. A year later, he volunteered for active duty as the war in Vietnam heated up. During the previous cruise in 1965, he worked in the confines of the ship’s magazines. By 1966, despite his lack of apparent motivation for promotion (he was still at the lowest rank possible), he was considered an old hand, mostly due to his time onboard and experience working with ordnance below decks. Because of this, he was given special tasks, such as the unsupervised handling and stowing of the Mk 24 flares, despite having no formal training with them. Insufficient manning compounded the problem. The Gunnery (G) Division to which Gervais was assigned only had seven of the ten men it rated.1 As a result, Gervais found himself working alone as he stored the 25-pound flares. At the 0600 shift change, Gervais was told to stop working and leave the remaining flares for the oncoming day shift.
The unfinished task of stowing the roughly seventy remaining flares fell upon two junior airmen, eighteen-year-old George James and seventeen-year-old James Sider. Despite being untrained in the correct safety procedures for the Mk 24 flare, these two unsupervised sailors began stowing the flares. The compartment used to stow flares was at the forward edge of the hangar deck, while the seven skids full of flares extended aft into the hangar bay. As the airmen unloaded each skid, the distance to the locker increased. Angered at the prospect of having to stow unused flares for the third morning in four days and in an effort to save time doing a job they felt should have been done by the night shift, James and Sider began passing the 25-pound flares to each other using an underhand toss. On one of these tosses, a lanyard used to ignite the flare caught on the hatch and ignited the 2-million-candlepower magnesium flare. Sider panicked, threw the burning flare in the locker containing some 650 flares, closed the hatch, and turned to run away. James was already gone. Sider then ran into the hangar bay shouting, “Fire!”
The resultant fire was immediately out of control. An alert petty officer, Henry Brooks, standing a safety watch in the hangar, ordered sailors to start throwing the remaining skids over the side. He then called the bridge to inform them of the fire. At the same time Brooks called, the men on the bridge noticed the heavy smoke billowing from the starboard side of the ship. Knowing full well the gravity of the situation, they sprang into action. In the excitement of the moment, however, the quartermaster on watch announced over the ship’s public address circuit (the 1MC), “This is a drill. Fire, fire, fire.” Realizing his mistake, he corrected himself: “This is NO drill. This is NO drill. Fire, fire in the hangar bay, starboard side forward, frame forty-two.”2
By the time the announcements were made at 0725, almost seven minutes had elapsed. Lt. Cdr. Mel Berg, Oriskany’s damage control assistant, was finishing breakfast when the call came. The excitement evident in the man’s voice made him hurry to Damage Control Central. Once there, men on watch told him that they had a fire in compartment A-107-M. Berg knew immediately that this fire would be bad. A for “Alpha” meant that the fire was in the forward part of the ship, and “107” indicated that it was on the starboard side of the hangar deck. But M for “Mike” meant magazine, which in turn meant ordnance and probably lots of it.3
In those decisive minutes, sailors reacted immediately without waiting for direction from the bridge, seizing the initiative and beginning efforts to save their ship. They fought fires while trying to save their fellow shipmates. They performed a thousand acts of courage that will never be recorded. Above all, they did their duty. Men dragged fire hoses toward the burning locker. Other men fought desperately to roll four nearby Skyhawks to the far end of the hangar deck. Three airplanes were loaded with bombs, and the fourth was a tanker with an additional 300 gallons of jet fuel.4 Firefighters watched in helpless horror as the steel bulkheads of the flare locker started ballooning under the 4,500-degree fire. An intense overpressure rapidly built up inside the compartment. The loosely secured hatch of compartment A-107-M blew open with the intensity of a blowtorch. The resultant explosion sent rockets of flame, toxic fumes, and thick, acrid smoke throughout the forward passageways and the forward elevator pit and aft into the hangar bay. Men manning hoses on the hangar deck were knocked down, their unmanned hoses snaking about wildly.
Responding to the fire call, Oriskany’s executive officer, Cdr. Francis Brown, hurried to the hangar bay. He arrived on scene immediately following the first explosion, and what he saw terrified him. Though it took him some time to find a working phone, he called the bridge to tell them the fire was out of control and recommended that they go to general quarters. Captain Iarrobino then ordered the ship to general quarters. The rapid gonging of the alarm made many men realize just how critical the situation had become. Men on the hangar deck never heard the alarm, however, as a second explosion tore through the hangar. Automatic sprinkler systems only made a bad situation worse, as the extremely high temperature of the fire instantly vaporized the deluge of water into flammable hydrogen. Combined with the gaseous products of combustion (nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and nitrous dioxide), the mixture proved deadly. The second explosion was much more violent than the first, with gouts of flame reaching back into Hangar Bay Two. As the wall of flames tore through the forward part of the ship, particles of magnesium were carried along and immediately began burning whatever they came in contact with. Whatever oxygen was left in the forward staterooms was immediately snuffed out. Following the second explosion, two helicopters in Hangar Bay One began to burn. By now, heavy smoke had reduced visibility to zero.
At 0735 a third explosion tore through the hangar bay. This explosion occurred when a liquid oxygen (LOX) cart caught fire. Liquid oxygen was used to fill oxygen bottles on the airplanes, enabling pilots to breathe while flying at altitude. The resulting explosion from the highly volatile servicing cart added more carnage to the hangar bay and effectively sealed off the forward part of the ship because the explosion occurred on the port side of the hangar bay. Besides the two burning helicopters, a Skyhawk caught fire, and the 20 mm ammunition from its cannons began to cook off, exploding from the heat. Throughout it all, young sailors worked feverishly to jettison bombs over the side lest they detonate and cause catastrophic damage. In a valiant effort, firefighters trained their hoses on those bombs that had yet to be pitched. Many bombs became so hot that their paint began to crackle and blister, while wisps of smoke emanated from the open fuze holes. There were countless stories of heroism as young men rolled, carried, and dragged bombs to a spot where they could be thrown overboard. In one instance, Airman Enrico Massagli literally picked up two 500-pound bombs, one after another, and, with adrenaline pumping, tossed them over the side.5
The smoke was so thick and choking that it caused two men to fall overboard. Lt. Cdr. John Fisher, the hangar deck division officer, was attempting to get to his general quarters station. Blinded by the dense smoke, he tripped and fell overboard through the starboard elevator opening. Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Rolly Foster had been helping move ordnance when the second explosion occurred. After being knocked to the deck, he was stunned and disoriented. Stumbling about in the smoke only worsened his confusion. Foster dropped to his knees and began to crawl away from the smoke and heat, but, unknowingly, he crawled out the same elevator opening. Both men were rescued by helicopters and delivered to nearby destroyers.6
On the bridge, Captain Iarrobino led his ship through the ensuing chaos. He ordered changes of course in response to requests relayed from the executive officer on the hangar deck. By placing the wind on alternating sides, Iarrobino attempted to clear away smoke and improve firefighting efforts on the hangar deck. At one point the ship momentarily lost control of steering, as electrical power was secured to prevent electrical fires from adding to the inferno. Firefighters slowly gained control of the fire, though the flares in A-107-M still burned out of control. The intense heat of the fire warped bulkheads in the vicinity of the magazine and buckled the hangar bay overhead. In Damage Control Central, Lt. Cdr. Mel Berg flooded the ship’s magazines at 0847. Several decks below the fire, temperatures in magazines had risen to dangerous levels—better to flood them than risk losing the ship.
Two hours after Airman James Sider tossed the flare in the compartment, it seemed that the fires were under control. Then a fourth explosion wracked the hangar deck. Several 55-gallon drums of paint stored in the forward elevator pit burst into flames. For the fourth time, flames and heavy, noxious smoke filled the hangar deck and berthing compartments forward of the hangar deck. The crews battled on. By 1000 damage control teams reported all fires under control, though the ship was by no means out of the woods. At 1009 the remaining electrical-power system failed, leaving the ship on emergency power. Firefighting efforts literally pumped thousands of gallons of seawater into the ship. While much of it poured over the side, a great deal of it drained below decks, threatening the stability of the ship.7 There was not much more damage Oriskany could sustain without succumbing.
Captain Iarrobino wisely kept the crew at general quarters, with the ship buttoned up. Throughout the day, flash fires continued, hindering efforts to locate survivors and retrieve the remains of those who had perished. By 1500, with the fires out, it was finally deemed safe enough to release the crew from their general quarters stations. Explosive-ordnance disposal teams then began the task of cautiously inspecting and clearing compartment A-107-M of any remaining flares. They found that 650 Mk 24 flares had burned, leaving nothing but ash in their place. Strangely, four flares survived the fire: two were partially burned, while the other two managed to survive the fire still packed inside their wooden shipping crates.8
With the fire finally out, Oriskany’s men set about the task of repairing their gravely wounded ship. As they cleaned up the aftermath, the shock of what they had experienced settled upon them. Three Skyhawks were damaged. One Skyhawk and two helicopters were completely destroyed. Forty-four men had perished. Twenty-four pilots from the air wing, including the new air wing commander, had died. Because flight operations had been canceled the night before, most pilots used the respite to catch up on sleep in staterooms immediately forward of the hangar bay. Forced air ventilation systems pumped noxious fumes and smoke into these staterooms. A great majority of the casualties died from asphyxiation in their rooms or in the passageways immediately outside, unable to escape the holocaust. The fire decimated the pilot ranks of the air wing. Living spaces forward of the fire were uninhabitable. Catapults used to launch aircraft, as well as the forward elevator, were rendered inoperable, making flight operations impossible. Due to the extensive damage and large loss of life, Oriskany was taken off the line.
On 28 October she sailed for Subic Bay. Upon arrival in the Philippines, crewmen stood in silent mourning as colors flew at half mast in honor of her dead. An honor guard of Marines stood at “present arms” as the flag-draped coffins bearing the victims of the fire were taken from the ship to a waiting Flying Tiger Line Boeing 707 for transportation to the United States. The surviving pilots of the air wing escorted the bodies home, where they were met by crowds of antiwar protesters as they landed at San Diego’s Lindberg Field. Oriskany remained in Subic Bay for another week of repair work before sailing for California. While en route, one of the victims, Lt. Cdr. Omar Ford, was buried at sea during a solemn ceremony. The ship arrived in California on 16 November 1966. It was a somber homecoming.
Over the ensuing years, much has been written concerning the tragedy that occurred on the morning of 26 October. A full recounting of the courage, skill, and devotion to duty shown by all hands in response to the fire can never be fully told and is far beyond the scope of this book. However, a broad synopsis of the tragedy is appropriate. The following stories are a few of the many.
Cdr. Ron Caldwell and Cdr. Dick Bellinger lived adjacent to each other, one deck above and just slightly forward of compartment A-107-M. A fortuitous phone call from the VA-163 duty officer woke Caldwell minutes before the fire started. As he sat pondering whether or not to go back to sleep or get up and have breakfast, he heard the 1MC calls. The panicked voice, plus the location given for the fire, jolted him awake, and he threw on his flight suit. He was in such a hurry that he just grabbed his boots and left the stateroom. As he walked out the door, he was hit by a blast of hot air that stopped him in his tracks. As he turned to make his way forward, he stopped and pounded his boots on Bellinger’s wall to tell him of the fire. He made it halfway to the forecastle before the lights failed. In the dark, he fought to overcome panic in the heat and smoke. He gradually made his way forward and stumbled onto the forecastle. Caldwell eventually made his way up the flight deck and back to VA-163’s ready room.9
Caldwell’s pounding woke Bellinger, who stumbled out of bed. As he opened his door to see who pounded on his wall, he was met by a blast of intense heat. Bellinger slammed the door closed, now fully awake. He was fortunate in that his stateroom contained a porthole. Originally, it had been open to the outside and a weather deck, but during the course of the ship’s history, the weather deck had been enclosed, and the porthole now led to an enclosed passageway. With his stateroom cut off by the fire, the porthole became Bellinger’s only option. He made one escape attempt, but he couldn’t fit through the 14-inch opening. With smoke and heat making his situation untenable, he was quickly running out of time. Bellinger did the only thing he could do. He hastily stripped and used the sink in his room to lubricate himself with soap and water before squeezing his 205-pound frame through the porthole.10 His hips caught on the small porthole, but Bellinger was able to reach up and grab a heavy cable to pull himself through. The heat of the deck burned his feet as he ran naked but alive toward the forecastle and eventual safety.
VF-111’s Lt. Cdr. Dick Schaffert and Lt. Cdr. Norm Levy shared a stateroom on the O1 level. Both men had been scheduled for early morning flights, which had been canceled. The squadron duty officer called Levy at 0700 after only three hours of sleep to wake him for the Alert-Five (as part of their duty, fighter squadrons stood various alerts, in this case sitting in the cockpit of an F-8 waiting to launch in less than five minutes should an incoming threat be detected). Schaffert volunteered to take the alert to allow his roommate some more precious sleep. Schaffert finished shaving and was walking back to their stateroom when he heard the announcements over the 1MC. Smelling smoke, he glanced behind him and noticed smoke roiling toward him. Schaffert ran back to their stateroom and turned on the lights. He shouted, “Norm, this is no drill. Let’s get the hell out of here!” Schaffert then ran down the passageway around the elevator pit, banging on the metal wall and shouting, “It’s no drill. We’re on fire! We’re on fire!” He rounded the last corner of the passageway as the first explosion rocked the ship. The blast blew him out of the passageway and onto the hangar deck.11 It was the last time Dick Schaffert saw his roommate. Levy died trying to escape their stateroom. His body was discovered next to the oxygen breathing apparatus (OBA) locker near their room.
VA-152’s Cdr. Gordon Smith was not scheduled to fly the previous night but stayed up until flight operations were canceled. Intending to sleep in, he inexplicably woke early, at 0715. As he dressed, he smelled smoke. A short time later, he heard the fire calls. He grabbed his shirt and opened his door to be met by clouds of smoke. Smith started running down the starboard O1-level passageway, pounding on stateroom doors and waking men as he went. As he made his way to the port side, he cut through the junior officer stateroom and instructed the men to make their way forward.12 On the forecastle, Smith and his new entourage were met by two sailors. Smith told them to close the door to limit smoke in the forecastle but to be ready in case more men escaped. He then went back to alert more men. He had only taken a few steps aft when he heard the first explosion. Smith turned and ran back to the forecastle, where the alert sailors heard him yelling. They opened the door for him and barely managed to close it before the inferno arrived. They were not a moment too soon, as angry flames licked through gaps around the door frame.13
Smith then shepherded the roughly fifty men up toward the flight deck, where he met Lt. Cdr. Jim Harmon, the operations officer for VA-152. After a quick discussion, the two decided to return to the forecastle. There, they teamed up with the two young sailors Smith had met previously. The four armed themselves with OBAs and began to search for survivors. With one of the sailors manning a fire hose to spray the other three, the team made their way down a trunk (a watertight shaft connecting two or more levels of the ship) to the main deck on the starboard side. They were met by heavy smoke and extreme heat. Crawling on their hands and knees, they tried to make their way aft. The heat quickly became so intense that water from the hose began flashing into steam, causing the team to abandon their efforts and return to the forecastle.
On the forecastle, the team decided to make another attempt, this time on the port side. Outfitted with fresh OBAs, Smith and Harmon made their way to the second deck. Though the heat was not as intense, they could not see due to the smoke. Crawling around, they began to check staterooms, though they quickly became disoriented in the darkness. The pair eventually crawled into a head, where in his disorientation Smith stuck his hand in a toilet. Their battle lanterns provided just enough light for Smith to recognize their location. Smith had been trying to find his executive officer, Cdr. John Nussbaumer, who lived in a nearby stateroom. Now confident of their location, he led them to the stateroom, where they found Nussbaumer’s body. Smith hoisted the body on his shoulders and began to carry him toward the forecastle. Unfortunately, his OBA ran out, and he had to give the body to Harmon. Lacking any air, Smith collapsed at the bottom of the trunk, where the alert sailors pulled him up to the forecastle while Harmon carried the body behind. After a few moments of relatively fresh air Smith came to. As other men carried the lifeless Nussbaumer to the flight deck, Smith and Harmon took gulps of fresh oxygen from a bottle, promptly causing them to cough up black mucus. Refreshed, they headed below, eventually making a total of six trips. Each time one of them felt like quitting, the other would say, “Well, ready to go again?” and off they went, back down into the smoke and fire.14 In all, they recovered another three victims before being forced to quit by doctors.15
VA-163’s Lt. Cdr. Marv Reynolds and Lt. Cdr. John Miles shared a stateroom just forward of the flare locker. Miles woke early to prepare for his flight with Cdr. Rodney Carter, the new CAG. His departure disturbed Reynolds, who woke shortly thereafter. As Reynolds shaved, he heard the 1MC calls and men running. He opened his door to investigate and noticed men running by just as the fireball from the first explosion roared by. He slammed the door closed, but flames still made their way through the gaps and louvered vents around the door. Reynolds used his towel to stem the smoke as decorations in their stateroom began to catch fire in the intense heat. As with Bellinger’s stateroom, their room also had a porthole. Fate intervened as Reynolds struggled to open it. Several days earlier, he and Miles had borrowed a specialized wrench to open the porthole in order to throw empty liquor bottles overboard, and they had failed to return it. That forgetful act saved his life as he grabbed the wrench and began to loosen the nuts holding the porthole closed. Before he got it open, however, Reynolds blacked out. He eventually came to and realized he had somehow opened the porthole and was lying there breathing fresh air.16 Then he realized that all the clothes had been burned off his body. In desperation, he reached over and turned on the sink to soak a blanket and cover his exposed body from the flames. He found a mismatched pair of shoes and contemplated walking out when the second explosion occurred. The heat grew even worse, causing paint on the walls of his stateroom to catch fire. In a last stand, he soaked his mattress and pulled it around him for shelter as he gulped fresh air from the porthole.
As Reynolds struggled to survive, Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Noel Hartford appeared to be everywhere, doing everything. When the alarm sounded, he ran forward on the flight deck, taxied two aircraft off elevator number 2, and then ran the elevator down to the hangar so that aircraft could be moved from the burning hangar to the flight deck. Next, Hartford directed a firefighting party to the forecastle and instructed the sailors on the use of OBAs. As he made his way back to the flight deck, Hartford was alerted to Reynolds’s plight. An alert helicopter crewman had noticed Reynolds waving from the porthole as they hovered nearby. They notified the ship, and soon Hartford leaned over the side to call to Reynolds. “Hey, what are you doing?” he yelled. “Right now, I’m burning up,” Reynolds yelled back.17 Hartford disappeared, to return a few moments later with a fire hose. Hartford swung the fire hose back and forth until Reynolds could snag it. Reynolds then attempted to spray his room. He quickly realized his mistake as the intense heat caused the water to flash into steam. He abandoned that plan and turned the hose on himself and the mattress. Hartford then lowered an OBA and two battle lanterns to Reynolds. Reynolds made five attempts to escape, and each time, he was driven back to the relative safety of his stateroom. Finally, on his sixth attempt, Reynolds made his way to the forecastle and safety. Reynolds was extremely lucky—fourteen men died in the immediate area surrounding his stateroom.18
Hartford continued to help. After helping Petty Officer Billy Coleman wet down the liquid oxygen compartment, Hartford helped with bomb and ordnance removal near the blazing flare locker. In the words of one officer, “It was amazing to see one man doing so much in so many places.”19
At 0725 Lt. John Bentley, a pilot from the VAW-13 detachment, called his roommate, VAH-4’s Lt. (junior grade) Ignatius Signorelli, to wake him and warn him of the fire. Half asleep, Signorelli stumbled about, slowly putting on clothes before leaving their stateroom. As he turned to walk aft down the passageway, a blast of heat hit him. Signorelli turned and ran, passing Reynolds’s room just as Reynolds opened his door. Signorelli continued running down the athwartship passageway and headed back aft, but before he could make it to the last door to the hangar, the 0728 explosion caught him. Signorelli ducked into a nearby head and was knocked down by Lt. Cdr. Dave Yost of VA-164, who jumped in after him as the explosion roared by.20
Signorelli and Yost were wetting their T-shirts to use as masks in a vain attempt to stop the smoke when they were joined by Cdr. Rodney Carter and Lt. (junior grade) Dewey Alexander. Both men were badly burned, and Signorelli’s last memory before he drifted into unconsciousness was of the men pleading to the Almighty. Sometime after 0800, a rescue party fought past the burning helicopters and LOX cart to make their way into the port-side passageway. In the head, they found Yost unconscious but alive. The rescue party carried him aft, past the raging inferno, to safety. Once clear of the fire they were able to resuscitate Yost before heading back for the other three victims. One by one, the lifeless bodies of Carter, Alexander, and Signorelli were carried aft to a casualty collection station. There, each man was reported as a fatality to Damage Control Central. Miraculously, after lying in the temporary morgue for several minutes, Signorelli began hacking up black mucus. A startled sailor summoned a corpsman, who applied resuscitation and saved Ignatius Signorelli. He was placed on a stretcher and taken to the sickbay. Signorelli survived but recalled little of the experience.21
The miraculous story of Cdr. Charles A. Lindbergh “Cal” Swanson, the executive officer of VF-162, and thirteen other men is one of the more extraordinary tales of the fire. The announcements over the 1MC woke most, and a group of five men, including Lt. Cdr. Foster Teague, stumbled out of their rooms on the second deck, forward of the elevator. The men remained calm, as smoke had not yet made its way down to them. A quick survey of possible exits showed heavy smoke through view-ports in the hatches, while bulkheads were quickly becoming hot to the touch. With their only escape routes blocked, the officers searched for any exit from their dilemma. When the smoke became intolerable, the only option was to enter a watertight trunk that extended straight down from the second deck to the seventh deck and provided access to voids in the ship’s hull. It was not the place in which one would normally seek refuge on a ship in peril, as there could be no escape.
The small group continued to grow as men joined them. Four more officers were roused from their staterooms nearby. Two sailors, David Cox and Jerry Robinson, were driven down from their general quarters stations one deck above. They had been going from stateroom to stateroom waking men before being driven away by the smoke and flames. Cdr. Harry Juntilla and Lt. (junior grade) Larry Ross stumbled down from the main deck as well, though both were severely burned by the 0728 explosion. Juntilla was so badly burned that he had gone into shock and tumbled down a ladder, injuring himself further. As Jerry Robinson reached out to stop the delirious man from stumbling away, Juntilla’s skin simply sloughed off in Robinson’s hands. Juntilla said to him, “Sailor, I’m dying.”22
Swanson faced the unenviable decision to lead the men into the trunk and seal the hatch behind them. They gingerly lowered the burned men down and climbed in. A ladder ran down the side, with small platforms jutting out from each level. Ross lost his footing and tumbled off the ladder, knocking himself unconscious as he landed on a small platform. The survivors tried to comfort the two severely injured men as best they could while distributing themselves on the different platforms to lessen the demands on the limited air supply. They were cut off, isolated in the darkness of the trunk and unsure of the fire’s severity.
As the senior man, Swanson was concerned with their predicament. No one knew the group had taken refuge in the trunk; thus, no rescue would be forthcoming. Their air was running out, and the men were beginning to show signs of hypoxia. From somewhere, someone produced an OBA, and Teague was chosen to see if they could escape. He didn’t make it far in the black smoke and was driven back to the trunk, as flames still blocked their exits.
For nearly two hours, time stood still in the dark trunk. Swanson faced the no-win decision: stay and die of asphyxiation, or venture out and potentially suffer the same fate or worse. He ordered David Cox to don the OBA and venture out. Cox was gone just a few moments before he returned with a rescue party that had made its way to the second deck. The men began the grim chore of lifting Juntilla out of the trunk, a nearly impossible task, as his skin kept coming off. Once through the hatch, they put him in a litter and began to carry him out. They immediately hit a tight turn in the smoke-filled passageways that took several minutes to negotiate with the stretcher. Once outside, Swanson turned and headed back to the trunk, where he grabbed Ross and instructed the others to follow. Swanson led them through the choking smoke and darkness and past the tight corner. They stumbled into the fresh air. Once outside, Swanson was startled to realize that no one had followed him, so he headed back again, this time equipped with OBAs and two sailors carrying a stretcher.
Swanson found the men in the trunk, where they’d retreated after losing him in the smoke. One man had passed out, and he was quickly loaded onto the stretcher. Somehow in the confusion, the stretcher party ended up in front of the human chain and stopped progress as they negotiated the tight turn in the smoke. Swanson helped them with the stretcher, and the group eventually made their way to safety, only to find that just one man had followed them out. The rest had retreated again, so Swanson went back for a third time. Determined not to leave anyone behind, Swanson led the chain through the smoke. Once again, they were held up at the same corner by stretcher-bearers struggling to carry a victim of the fire. Swanson yelled for them to make way for the living and proceeded to bring the last of the survivors to safety.23 Twelve men survived the harrowing ordeal. Juntilla passed away several days later, the last victim of the fire.
Among the many acts of heroism, the efforts of Lt. (junior grade) Jay Meadows stand alone. Meadows, a Crusader pilot in VF-111, was in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting for the 0730 launch to start when the fire occurred. He shut down the engine and proceeded toward the fire, where he discovered that two squadron mates were trapped in their third-deck stateroom.24 Very few, if any, pilots had ever seen an OBA before the fire, and Meadows improvised to overcome this deficiency. He was seen running across the flight deck with an emergency oxygen bottle from an airplane and his oxygen mask from his flight gear. He put on his mask, plugged in the emergency bottle, and climbed down into the smoke.25 With a sailor following him, Meadows made his way to the third deck, where intense heat and dense smoke stopped them. After several attempts, they were compelled to abandon their efforts.
Meadows then joined a rescue team made up of two repairmen on the forecastle. Finally equipped with an OBA, he lowered himself through a trunk into the dense smoke and heat in the main-deck stateroom area. Unable to see because of the dense smoke, Meadows dropped to the deck and felt his way through the passageways to a head, where he stumbled upon VA-163’s Lt. Cdr. Clem Morisette in a shower stall. Morisette was unconscious but still alive. Meadows dragged his fellow pilot from the head and turned him over to the other men in his party so that they could evacuate him. However, they were unable to carry him up the ladder to the forecastle. Meadows had the two sailors help him put Morisette on his shoulders and then carried him up the narrow trunk’s vertical ladder to a waiting stretcher. From the forecastle, Lt. (junior grade) Vance Schufeldt and Lt. (junior grade) Peter Munro carried Morisette to the flight deck, where corpsmen began artificial respiration in an attempt to revive him. It proved futile, however; he had already died from smoke inhalation.26
Through it all, Meadows’s goal was the rescue of his squadron mates, Cody Balisteri and William McWilliams III. He returned to the third deck in another attempt to reach them. Once again, flames and smoke thwarted his attempts. He returned to the main-deck staterooms to search for victims of the fire. After seeing that larger rescue parties had gained access from the hangar bay he returned to the second deck in a last effort to locate his squadron mates trapped below. Waist-deep seawater now precluded entry to the third deck, so Meadows searched the second-deck staterooms, discovering another body. Meadows remained on the scene until access to the third deck finally became possible. By then, time had run out on the trapped men, and Meadows could only help remove their bodies. Five men had perished: Balisteri and McWilliams plus their two roommates, Ens. Daniel Kern and Lt. (junior grade) Gerald Siebe, along with Lt. John Francis in the neighboring stateroom. While carrying the last of the casualties to the flight deck, Meadows was finally overcome by smoke inhalation and exhaustion and had to be removed himself. For his efforts during the fire, Meadows was one of thirteen men awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.27
Even as Meadows performed his heroics, his actual roommates struggled to escape the fire. Meadows lived in a large junior officer stateroom with several other officers, including Lt. (junior grade) Ralph Bisz and Lt. (junior grade) Tom Spitzer. Both men were close friends, having previously gone through flight school together prior to joining VA-163. Bisz was woken by the fire call and woke Spitzer. Hand in hand like children, the two men left the stateroom, with Bisz in the lead.28 Bisz turned aft toward the hangar bay as smoke rapidly filled the passageway. Then the lights went out. In the confusion, Spitzer’s hand slipped, and then Bisz walked into a bulkhead. Stunned and disoriented, Bisz then bumped into someone in the darkness. Desperate to escape and unable to breathe in the choking smoke, Bisz started running. Although he didn’t know it at the time, Bisz was actually retracing his steps, which took him forward, away from the fire and toward the safety of the forecastle. As he was about to give up, incapable of holding his breath any longer, he saw the darkness give way. With his lungs screaming, Bisz made a last-ditch lunge and stumbled into the light of the forecastle.
Tom Spitzer’s body was discovered in the passageway just outside their stateroom, near the bulkhead Bisz had walked into. Next to him lay the body of Lt. (junior grade) James Brewer. Though he would be killed by a SAM in 1967, Ralph Bisz spent the next nine months suffering from extreme survivor’s guilt. Bisz could not be swayed from his belief that he’d bumped into Tom Spitzer after walking into the bulkhead. He remained convinced that he could have saved his friend if he’d not been so desperate to escape.29 The capriciousness of the day’s events made the tragedy that much more difficult to bear. Throughout the fire, it seemed the fickle finger of fate decided who lived and who died. Death came randomly. Some men burned, while others nearby survived unscathed. The survivors were left reeling, struggling to cope while continuing to fight as the air war escalated in 1967.
For the men who survived the holocaust, the experience was tragic. Captain Iarrobino attempted to sum it up, addressing the crew over the 1MC as they sailed for Subic Bay:
As terrible as this tragedy is, it could have been much worse. If it hadn’t been for the courageous and daring actions of many of you, our casualty toll would have been much higher and damage to the ship and aircraft would have been much more extensive.
There are many reports that I have heard, and I know I haven’t heard them all, which describe officers and men risking their lives together to save shipmates, jettison bombs over the side, remove aircraft from Hangar bay No. 1 and to battle the fire in the hangar and the forward part of the ship under the most adverse conditions.
To all these men—to all who assisted in any way to bring the fire under control, to all who cared for the casualties and to all the repair parties who did such a magnificent job—I want to express my sincere thanks and admiration. Watching you react to this crisis . . . made me even more proud than I was before to be a shipmate of yours.30
But perhaps the valor was best described by one seasoned chief petty officer: “Those crazy rock-’n’-roll jitterbuggers, they saved this ship today. Getting into that fire and pushing those bombs over the side and volunteering for rescue parties—those kids were everywhere doing everything.”31
The hangar deck fire resulted from several factors. First, in 1966 the navy in general was still conducting the war with peacetime manning requirements. The Gunnery Division onboard Oriskany was manned with only seven sailors in what should have been a ten-man division. This shortage of personnel led directly to the untrained and unsupervised Airman Sider and Airman James mishandling ordnance. Second, the hectic pace of operations during Rolling Thunder meant that the undermanned crew onboard Oriskany was pushed to their limits. There was no respite from operations. Four months prior to the accident, Lt. Frank Elkins wrote, “Night operations were cancelled after I wrote last night. A good thing. People are really getting worn down, particularly the ordnance crews who load tons and tons of ordnance on the aircraft, reconfigure for different kinds of weapons, fix discrepancies on the ordnance gear, and catch naps as best they can, behind the island, on aircraft wings, or under the gun mounts.”32
Finally, Oriskany was one of the oldest carriers then operating. The pace and type of operations meant that there was no suitable place to store the new Mk 24 flares. Instead of being stored in the ship’s magazines like other ordnance, the flares were stored in an empty compartment forward of the hangar bay. All these factors combined to make shortcuts and mishandling inevitable—it was just a matter of time before accidents occurred as the undermanned and overworked crew struggled to meet the daily sortie requirements demanded of them. In fact, the fire onboard Oriskany was the first of three major aircraft carrier fires involving similar circumstances with similar results. Due to the dynamic wartime requirements, the navy had no firefighting materials, no equipment, and no techniques available to extinguish the new magnesium flares should they begin burning. The carrier’s automatic sprinkler systems only made a bad situation worse, as the extremely high temperature of the fire instantly vaporized water into flammable hydrogen.
The fire and loss of life created many challenges and further strained the carrier fleet. Oriskany’s early departure from the Tonkin Gulf complicated scheduling for the remaining carriers and increased the operational tempo of an already overtasked navy. The navy rushed to repair Oriskany at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco Bay, as it desperately needed her. Unlike the other carriers that experienced fires, she would not get a reprieve.33 The biggest challenge facing Oriskany during the coming months would be the loss of combat-experienced personnel and the gaping holes left in the wake of the fire. Every squadron in the air wing lost personnel, including the CAG, commanding officers, and executive officers. The loss of life was a blow to morale and certainly to the core leadership of the air wing. With pilot ranks devastated, squadrons received fresh pilots with minimum amounts of training prior to departing again in 1967. But without combat-experienced leadership, the survivors would be hard-pressed to train the new arrivals and pass on enough knowledge before Oriskany returned to Vietnam. It was a situation that would have grave consequences during the next year.