SAILORS TO THE END: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes who Fought It

[RamboLiberal]

If you want the truth about what happened that day on the Forrestal and John McCain's plane being hit by the rocket where only karma kept him alive, then read this book and not the garbage some DU'ers are posting about this incident.

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Freeman has done his research well, interviewing as many survivors as he could find, from the Forrestal's captain John Beling down to lowly seamen, following the paper trail of investigations and even spending some time himself on a comparable carrier to get a firsthand look at how these enormous floating cities operate. His writing conveys well the personal stories of many people directly involved in fighting the huge fire; it also gives the reader a sense of the size and complexity of a huge ship like the Forrestal. He is also able to tell the story with only a minimum of the mind-numbing military jargon and acronyms that so often get in the way of lay comprehension in military memoirs.

Freeman also seems to have a political agenda, though this is not overtly stated. As the years have passed since the event, the Navy has tended to blame the disaster on the Forrestal's crew, even producing a training film about shipboard firefighting with that message. At one stage early in the post-event investigations there was an effort to scapegoat Capt. Beling; he was officially reprimanded, but the reprimand was later rescinded. Nonetheless, he finished his naval career at an obscure outpost in Iceland.

Freeman seems to want to do two things: Praise the crew as the true heroes of the event and lay the blame on old, defective ammunition, the source of those massive explosions that took most of the 134 lives that were lost. The ship's ordnance experts were enraged when they were supplied with these ancient, defective and dangerous bombs the day before the accident --- but they were told nothing else was available. Lyndon Johnson had ordered a big escalation in the bombing campaign, regardless of the fact that there was not enough modern ammunition available to do the job. Freeman claims this factor has been swept under the rug in official assessments of what went wrong that July morning.

Another contributing factor in the debacle was the short-circuiting of two separate safety precautions concerning the activation of rockets on planes ready to take off on bombing missions. This is one of those bureaucratic mix-ups that can happen in any large enterprise --- and as any veteran can tell you, there is no larger or more bureaucratic entity than the U. S. military.

The pilot whose plane was hit by that stray rocket that morning was 26-year old John McCain, who now sits in the U. S. Senate. McCain is, however, just one among a large and appealing cast of sailor heroes in Freeman's book. There are wonderfully affecting stories of young sailors whose lives were spared --- or taken --- by sheer chance.

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0066212677.asp

[spag68]

1. I Read the book last year

Nothing in it makes McLaim out to be a hero. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, however it did make the Navy out to be really bad in it's use of outdated bombs.If anything the book shows the futility of war.

[Rageneau]

2. I strongly disagree with your opinion.

And so do the facts.

This incident was caught on videotape. In it, McCain shows himself to be cool and decisive in a crisis. Several other pilots perished in their aircraft, but McCain was able to disconnect himself, exit the cockpit, walk down the nose, and leap through the flames to safety. Most impressive of all, although it is hard to see on the video, the narration says that as soon as he reached safety, he STARTED BACK INTO THE FLAMES to save his friends -- but a huge explosion blew him backwards.

I don't know what YOUR definition of hero is, but being willing to reenter walls of flames full of BOMBS to save your friends sure qualifies for mine!

http://www.truveo.com/Forrestal/id/3379411574

[RamboLiberal]

3. There were a lot of heroes that day

And I don't know if you can call McCain one of them, but even though he took some shrapnel to the chest he did go to the hangar deck and help throw bombs off the ship.

The story that broke my heart were the sailors belowdecks in port steering who though mortally wounded followed the instructions of the damage control officer to do the tasks to transfer steering to the starboard steering control room.

One of the most poignant incidents inspired the quote at the beginning of this review. All modern warships have emergency manual steering in the aft portion of the ship below deck. They are always manned in case control from the bridge is lost. The Forrestal had two rudders, aport and astarboard , with two corresponding emergency steering compartments. The exploding ordinance blasted through the decks and severely injured and trapped three men in the port emergency steering compartment. They knew they were dying, and the chief engineering officer, Commander Merv Rowland, knew they were dying. Commander Rowland also knew that if they lost steering, the imperiled ship’s position was even more untenable. He ordered the dying men to manually transfer the port emergency steering to the starboard emergency steering. This was their last act.

"They were sailors to the end. They never begged for mercy. They never whined. They never whimpered." - Commander Merv Rowland, chief engineering officer, USS Forrestal.

http://www.curledup.com/sailorst.htm

[Captain Hilts]

5. Friend of mine was flying A7s off Forrestal on that cruise. The cruisebook for it is amazing -

His plane was narrowly saved.

Those sailors shoving ordnance off the flight deck, etc. were real heroes.

If you are interested in this sort of thing. Read about the USS Franklin:

[Captain Hilts]

4. Old ordnance was also the problem on Iowa. nt

[BOSSHOG]

6. "A Glimpse of Hell"

An awesome account of the Iowa Explosion.

[Captain Hilts]

7. Thanks, I'll check it out...

Dad, who was in charge of an eight inch gun off Korea before going into subs, was horrified by the way ordnance had been stored off ship and the procedures used in the turrets.

[RamboLiberal]

8. I concur on "A Glimpse of Hell"

Well worth reading. And IMHO another Reagan/Bush 41 disaster. If you're going to put WWII battleships back in to service for gosh sakes manufacuture some new powder charges for them and not depend on old powder charges dating back 40+ years!