Posted on 09/03/2018 3:11:10 PM PDT by Bell Bouy II
NO. I've been both a "Green Strip" (enlisted) and "Brown Shoe" (officer). In the Aviator community, maybe with exceptions, there is a strong bond. Especially with the men who worked on and flew the aircraft.
On deployment, Officers don't go off duty until our crews are fed, housed and transported. Been on both sides of that equation. Many flying officers were prior enlisted. NO!
There were no planes behind his engine nozzles. The nozzles were pointed out to sea, nothing was behind that could have been ignited. All this talk about a wet start is total BS. A Zuni Rocket from an F-4 on the other side of the deck was accidentally fired due to a voltage spike when the pilot of the F-4 switched to internal power and the firing circuit cut out safety pin was not in, or not in all the way. I hate mccain and think the world is a much better place with him six feet under, but the Forrestal fire was not his fault and anyone who says it was is lying. Period. End. Of. Story.
Re Chief Gerald W. Ferrier: In the word’s best non-hackneyed sense, that was an awesome account.
http://virtualwall.org/df/FarrierGW01a.htm
So, in re; the Truth Dig article.... one wonders whatever happened to Lt. j.g Dollarhide who witnessed McCain talking to the “faceless” burned plane captain Robert Zwerlein (McCain’s own plane captain, whom he said he watched die in the sick bay onboard— when in fact, Zwerlein died 3 days later on the USS Repose... while McCain had by that time made it for “R&R” in Saigon_. What happened to Dollarhide?
McCain’s co-demon in ignoring the POW-MIAs left after the Paris Peace Accords— his war monger partner, Henry Kissinger-— !!- spoke at his funeral. Sick and disgusting bastard, knowingly gave up the remaining POWs to let the NV and VC murder them. And McCain covered up and buried Kissinger’s actions, and denied the families any answers which he knew full well. Watching Cindy McCain being escorted to the Vietnam Memorial by Gen. Mattis and Gen. Kelly and some Navy aide-— was disgusting enough as regards this long running fraud. Only thing worse would be John fn Kerry-— with is idiotic mentality, and his French-Iranian connections, gigolo boy.
You are correct, the missile struck Aircraft #405, White’s aircraft.
For the rest, the Official report can be found at:
http://www.jag.navy.mil/library/investigations/USS%20FORRESTAL%20FIRE%2012%20AUG%2069%20PT%201.pdf
That report is not fiction, many other stuff out there is.
Do I get an apology for “not knowing what I am talking about?”
Any idea how that made me feel?
It should be kept in mind though that despite controversies about the details of McCain's military conduct and record, his later suffering as a POW was real, as was his declining to be released early. This was heroism in service to our country.
The better approach is to demonstrate that McCain's political record is highly questionable and full of errors, with much grandstanding, posturing, and disloyalty that undermined the GOP. In effect, McCain's defects of personality made him a flawed and unreliable political figure for the GOP.
Shrewdly, the media and the Democrats shamelessly praised McCain and catered to his ego. The harm this did fell mostly on the GOP. Most notably, McCain's great ambition was to become President. Yet, winning the GOP nomination in 2008, McCain ran an epically inept general election campaign.
McCain's fundamental lack of good sense was on full public display when, after the financial markets melted down in 2008, he suspended his campaign and asked for a meeting in Washington to discuss possible solutions. McCain left the impression that he had a plan to offer.
Instead, McCain showed up with nothing. He asked the others in the meeting what ideas they had, resulting in a desultory and fruitless discussion. Obama, who was present, grinned when he heard McCain admit that he had nothing to offer, seeing it as confirmation that he and his allies were correct in assessing that the entire meeting was yet more empty grandstanding from McCain.
Oddly, McCain and Trump both had big egos and obvious similarities in their personalities. I surmise that McCain was deeply jealous and resentful of Trump's success in actually winning the Presidency as an outsider running his campaign on the fly.
As ugly as that incident was it made the Navy revaluate it’s munition handling and damage control.
Look at the guys medals
Seriously low keyed him
Another disgrace
Excellent
Weren’t those three given to most anyone who showed up during Nam ?
Disclaimer: I tried like hell to enlist in ‘73 when I was 18, but a minor cardiac arrhythmia kept me out, and it’s bothered me to one degree or another every day since.
One of the reasons I feel honored to be a member of a site where so many vets congregate.
Thank you. That’s why my comment was a question, not a statement of fact.
There were two safeguards designed to prevent accidental missile firings: a pin, which, when inserted, physically broke the firing circuit, and there was the pigtail, which connected the firing circuit to the missile pod. Until the plane was on the catapult ready to take off, the pin was supposed to be inserted, and the pigtail left disconnected. Once the plane was on the catapult, an accidentally launched missile would have zoomed down the deck and crashed into the sea harmlessly.
Two things happened, disabling both safeguards:
The pilot of the plane which launched the missile testified that the firing occurred at the moment he switched his plane from external to internal power.
Was this A-4 behind him floating in the ocean? Because that's the direction McCain's plane's jets were pointed at the time.
“A Zuni missile from a F-4 was launched and struck McCain’s A-4. …” [centurion316, post 13]
“The Zuni missile did not strike McCains aircraft …” [silverleaf, post 266]
The 127 Mk32 “Zuni” was at the time an unguided rocket, not a missile. A couple posters have noted that. Its motor has a relatively low-voltage ignition pulse of 28 volts. Not the best for rocket motor initiators; the electrical primers for the 20x134mm aircraft gun rounds need higher voltages.
Best safety practice was to keep ignition-lockout circuit interruptor pins installed in rocket firing jacks for these munitions until the aircraft was spotted for launch upon a catapult. Surviving aviation ordnance specialists on the USS Forrestal later said they’d been ordered to remove the safety lockout pins before final spotting, because doing it according to the book slowed the launch rate. The configuration of the Mk 32 launcher lockout pin was quite similar to another commonly used lockout pin, and they were known to become swapped. Using the wrong pin may have looked OK externally; but it did not interrupt the electrical continuity sufficiently. It was never determined which pin had been installed on the Mk 32 launchers on the F-4 from whence the launched rocket came. Pins had also been observed to be blown loose by jet blast and starter-cart exhaust or pressurized air.
The 1000-pound bombs stored in quantity on the Forrestal’s deck were 1953 vintage, not WW2. The lot in question had been onloaded earlier from a resupply vessel; enlisted techs and a junior officer noted leakage of phlegmatizing agent from the bomb cases, which had been poorly stored (determined later). Leakages was reported up the Forrestal’s chain of command and a loadout of better-condition munitions was requested, but they were told none were available and the command hierarchy overruled the junior troops - in the interest of an extra push toward mission accomplishment. It was later determined that the HE bursting charge of the munitions in question was less than stable under prolonged storage in extreme conditions; it was then more likely to cause to low-order detonation when heated. Afterwards, most air-launched munitions of this type were filled with a different burster charge (H6) - far more stable.
Then-LCDR McCain testified that his own aircraft was hit, but it’s probable he recalled the details wrong in the uproar and immediacy of the event. He also recalled the tail number of his A-4 in error. Such mistakes are a common occurrence in aviation mishaps; even trained observers can get stuff wrong.
The commanding officer of the Forrestal was not officially faulted for the mishap, but when his tour was over, he was assigned to a staff billet and never commanded at sea the rest of his career.
The fuel fire and subsequent munition detonations killed a great many of the shipboard firefighting personnel; untrained crewmembers stepped in as they could, but were of necessity lower in abilities, contributing to the problems. In the aftermath, the US Navy altered firefighting training to require a much higher percentage of carrier crews to become qualified. This may have proven fortuitous; another fire occurred in 1969, on USS Enterprise, when a starter cart’s exhaust caused a Mk32 rocket motor to catch fire and burst. The mishap report credited a measurably quicker and more effective response to the greater training on firefighting and damage control resulting in lower loss of life (28, compared to 134 dead on the Forrestal) and less damage.
Carrier air operations are at best risky, demanding the utmost concentration and the highest proficiency among personnel.
That was an outstandingly informative post .. thank you.
Yes it appears the medals given to Chief Farrior were the common “ I served” awards
This is a disgrace
One account says the last image of Chief Farrior was him running toward McCain’s burning plane with a hand held fire extinguisher
Then he disappeared in the bomb blast
Left a wife and 4 kids
Wonder if McCain ever visited or wrote them a letter about their Dad’s final act of courage
McCain and all his biographers airbrushed Sq.Cdr Fred White and Chief Farrior and Robert Zweirlein and all of the dead deck crew out of history. McCain replaced Fred White with himself as the missile strike victim.
He did not attend the memorial service aboard the Forrestal for the dead because he was at a bar in Saigon worrying about his career
The wet start rumor was a fake story brewed up to derail McCain’s run for president. The cause of the disaster was a power surge. Here is the following description:
“At 10:51:21, F-4 Pilot Jim Bangert hit the
power cutover switch (to transition to
internal power), and one of his Zuni
rockets blazed across the deck, chest
high, ripping open a fuel tank of an A-4
Skyhawk, manned by John McCain.”
Good idea.
It would be interesting to hear Meghan's reaction.
interesting read here. If you want a history of the MCANNs(McCains) - start at part one and prepare to have your jaw drop
http://www.whale.to/b/nicoloff.html#Part_2_
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.