Andy would you please review my postings here and either hammer me or agree with me on the single most important point I make.

That point is: There is a book endorsed by McCain about the Forrestal, and far too many documentary’s to make sense for a single tradegy, even though it’s yours and mine.

McCain participated in Situation Critical right about the time he became mentioned as a Presidential hopeful same as the book “Sailor’s to the End”.

All this media leads people to the absolute wrong conclusion. ‘Old Ordinance’ was to blame. I handled old ordinance from 1965, the whole Sea Campaign was fought with mixed bags of ordinance.

The BOOK is outright propoganda as the text on page 85 leaves you the reader to believe the ordinance was actually from 1935 while the author includes in the notes in the back that nobody else reads, he KNEW they were made from 53-55 which is not ‘old’ at all, ordinance has a very long shelf life and we don’t just throw it away.

Andy, knowing what we know ‘NOW’ would YOU agree the cause was and the whole damned mess would not and could not have happened if not for individuals going against set in stone safety measure’s, naval regulations. Negligent men made shortcuts that they did not report up the chain of command. Had they not done that the Zuni ‘couldn’t’ have fired..

My suspiscion is that for the first time I’m aware of our government covered for rather then assigned blame where blame is obviously due, because ?, because?, Johnny was part of the decision making process.

His leaving to get instructions on how to testify (supposition) from his father is just too damning. All the excessive coverage and spinning coincidently beginning right at a critical time in his political career just seems to pat.

The whole smear smacks of coverup to me Andy and we get to be the goats.. We weren’t hero’s for handling live ordinance we were stupid, we weren’t hero’s for fighting the fires in our tee shirts, we were stupid, every documentary effort mentiones shit like that. The ‘required’ uniform of the day was tee shirts and dungaree’s we don’t get to pick what we’d like to wear in the Navy.

Officers make bad decisions and blow up the ship and the fire fighters and the lowly crewmen fighting fires, retrieving dead and wounded, are the only ones criticised..

I’d sure like to find the officer who figured out how to open the #3 Hangar bay doors just as we finally got the fires under control and started it all over again so I finally got asphixiated..

Behind HIM, I’d like to know who the bastard was who decided the place for corpses and body bags was right at the only hatch to get to the chow line. There are seventeen stories 1004 ftx 565 to put such carnage and somebody thinks the entire crew should have to see, smell, and live with mental pic that for the rest of their life.

Anyhow, Andy, thanks for the help back then, God Bless.. The short version of the question posed, WAS IT MEN that ‘caused it’ or was it ‘old ordinance’. I don’t think ordinance had an IQ but maybe I’m wrong.

Phooey to the talking head degree’s up the wazzoo who can be so easily mislead and will NOT take up this investigation.. We of the crew are owed the real truth, the family’s of our fallen are owed the truth. There is a Goat to be sacrificed, but power and money and the ‘true’ Elite, scare our chronicalers of the truth, even in this great nation.

Andy and I don’t say we are hero’s and nobody I know blatts about being a hero except the fifth dumbest in his class ‘Shipwreck McCain”. I think if he could have swam away he would have.

Why has McCain insisted on only releasing part of his war record? Obviously there are many parts in it that he does not want the public to know about. He is happy to dredge history in order to show us the “ real Barack Obama “, however, how many of us know anything of McCain that he hasn’t vetted and edited.

Fuck John McCain! National hero my ass. National and Internationatal disgrace!!! He will burn in hell much like those he left to burn on the Forrestal!!!

I would like to hear John McCain tell his version of the tragedy on the U.S.S. Forretal. Or better still, have some of his Naval buddies on the ship tell what they saw and heard regarding the “hero” McCain!

I was on board the USS Forrestal during the tragic fire July 29,1967.

I worked on the flight deck as an Aviation Technician for VAW-123.

The day of the fire was one that I will never forget. The rumor on board as I remeber it was that an A-4 did a wet start and ignited a missle that caused a chain re-action of explosions and fire.  Most of the Navy personal that were injured or killed were actually night shift personal sleeping below the flight deck.  I remember having to go into those sleeping qaurters and pulling completly charred bodies from bunks and putting them into body bags.  Over one hundred thirty body bags were in the hanger bay when we finally pulled into the Phillipines.  I heard they flew McCain off the ship before the fire was under control.  Why?  I don’t know.
I have been watching the campaign from it’s inception.  I find it very intersting how McCain speaks of being a prisoner of war, but not once have I heard him even mention being on board the USS Forrestal during what would have been one of the worst tragedy’s at sea in modern history. 
I would like to hear him explain from his perspective what actually happened on that tragic day.

My Dear J. M. Caiella,
If I understand you correctly, you dispute Mr. McCains own opinion and endorsement of the book ‘Sailors to the End’ and the documentary’s he participated in, correct?
I have to presume you’ve not studied the book.
Both the book and all subsequent documentary films state that in two seperate incidents a formal committee and an ambitious group both independantly chose to eliminate one failsafe each with out co-ordination or reporting them up the chain of command.
These sources endorsed by Mr. McCain as fact state that openly, and McCain adhered to their statements and conclusions without comment.

Willfully eliminating regulations would be the ‘cause’ the ‘effect’ would be the Zuni went off resulting in an a standard issue weapon, the 1k used by the entire fleet detonating on deck.

I believe that much is irrefutable. Even you did not dispute that.

Mr. Kennedy left the site of his tradegy too, he sought advice before he faced the consequeces of his actions or reported his part at Chappaquadic. By leaving on the first available ‘civilian’ transportation to Siagon where he could communicate privately with advisors, seeek help and advice, Mr. McCain surely leaves himself open to question.

Did anyone else have the opportunity to get council and advice before making their statement. I didn’t, did you? I didn’t feel the need, did you?

If not for the illogical obviously flawed conclusions put before the public I would be at peace right now. Never knowing. It is the twisted logic that drags me forth and the question ‘why is it so important’ to spin the obvious and cover up for a crew things that in times past were openly addressed. Documentary’s often name the names and condemn men for using bad judgement in their lifetimes sparing no feelings.

All the stuff for public consumption is crafted away from the obvious ‘cause’ toward the great unknown ‘they’ paranoics always reference. ‘They’ in this case being unknown Pentagon leaders and decision makers, when in fact the critical decisions were made ‘at sea’ by people who ‘could be known’ but are not.

Those who want to wear blinders and follow the leader without question, that is your right. Those who can and must think for themselves are entitled to real answers.

Especially this crew. However, when each crew member is donned a ‘hero’ for simply having survived in all the media, it does a lot to quell hard questions. “Some” of the men I served with are most certainly hero’s of the highest order, facing the inferno without regard for their own safety. God Bless Them.

My question to J. M. Caiella would be, if the people who made the shipboard decisions are not unknown, please name them for us. We bare them no ill will, we would love for them to live in peace and be left alone, but we suspect that one of them could one day aspire to leadership where daredevelry, impulsive behaviour, and inattention to detail could cause others harm.

There must be a cogent response to accusations and statements of alleged fact in the comments by Sailorathisends.
1. The Massey report he refers to is the Navy’s official investigation into the causes of the fire. Despite this sailor’s experience, the report and photographs of the fire reveal that McCain’s and other A4s of VA-46 were carrying two (not one) of the old 1,000-lb. bombs; one under each wing. The centerline station was occupied by a 400-gallon fuel tank.
2. The “failsafes” were not removed by unnamed officers. Based on the operational experience of carriers from the Pacific Fleet that had been on the line for some time (the Forrestal was an Atlantic Fleet carrier, the first assigned to the Vietnam War), it was decided to change some launch procedures to match those of the Pacific ships.
3. While old ordnance “had nothing to do” with the initiation of the fire, it had everything to do with the death toll and destruction. Firefighters estimated they needed about two minutes to knock down the fire. The first bomb exploded within about 90 seconds. Others followed shortly thereafter. The Massey investigation found that the newer bombs only exploded after some five minutes in the fire and virtually all of them with what is termed a low-order explosion. The old bombs blew as high-order explosions.
4. I assume his reference to the “only guy who escaped testifying under oath” refers to Sen. McCain. If so, this is absolutely untrue. McCain gave a written deposition soon after the fire (as did the whole crew). This statement is part of the Massey report. Further, about a week later in Subic Bay, during the hearings, John McCain indeed DID testify under oath. The questions and McCain’s answers are also part of the Massey report.
5. If his statement about “abandoning ship” and “jumping on the first helicopter out” refers to Sen. McCain, again this is a false declaration. There is adequate documentation of McCain’s activities in the wake of the fire. And the helicopters were used to evacuate the wounded. No one would entertain the thought of allowing anyone else the valuable space and weight allowance.

McCain is just a very secretive fellow, though since he picked Palin I’m much more concerned about his medical records than his military records. Bride of Caesar? Or taking the Fifth? Voters in an actual democracy should have access to sufficient information to evaluate the candidates for public office.

I think the truth is usually found between the extremes. In this case, McCain’s version is one extreme, but this article is *NOT* the extreme on the other end. However, many parts of the story could be examined--and the first step in getting the truth would be for McCain to release his military records. That is an obvious starting point, and it makes me deeply suspicious that he has not done so. My own military records are certainly not particularly glorious, but I would certainly feel obliged to release them if I were running for public office.

Everyone makes mistakes. However not everyone learns from them… Palin is just McCain’s largest recent mistake.

It is my duty to those men who served honorably, died honorable, and did not have a Admiral daddy. McCain did not participate in saving the ship by his own admission while I was helping wounded and a friend had to remove the skin from fingertips to print the many, many, unrecognizable body’s.
Anyone with a brain can understand the simplicity of my opening claim.
Those UNAMED officers who willfully eliminated ‘two’ failsafe that prevented Zuni’s from going off were the sole cause of the rocket going off. Old ordinance had nothing in the WORLD to do with it. NO NEGEGENCE OF DUTY, NO FAILURE TO USE THE CHAIN OF COMMAND, no ZUNI, NO way this mass death could have been happened, period. Now anybody can understand that.
Secondly, A-4’s set up to deliver large 1000 lb weapons never carried two in my two years six months on three ships total in the Air War of the South China Seas. It was always 1000 lbs on the middle inboard weapons mount, two external tanks on the wing mounts or either an assortmant on wing mounts and perhaps napalm or an external fuel tank in the center mount.
Yes bombs were blown off planes into the fire, but NOT McCains, he claims his fell off after he got hit. His weapon, singular, was armed when it lay there, and would have blown due to the fuse activated by wind turning a little propeller. He claims ‘two’ which I never saw on one bird in the whole previous cruises on previous ships. The 7019 page Massey investigation found White’s plane was hit after ‘all witnesses’ testified under oath.
I regret his incarceration but it is a further testiment to his ineptness, not worthy of the claim of hero.
MY hero’s were there fighting fires, defusing live weapons, disposing of those that were in harms way and could have sunk us.
There were no accidents that day, there was willfull negligence of Naval Regulations and ‘somebody’ is to blame for that.
There are SEVENTEEN Unknown’s in one tomb in Arlington, some individual/s are completely at fault for that.
Another ship, same exact circumstances there would have been men in Levenworth for several charges such as derilection of duty.
Had ANY other officer abandoned the ship while the confligeration was still going by hopping a ride on the first helo out, I assure you he would have served long and hard time but John is the Admirals son isn’t he.
This article is accurate, factual, and easily proven by interviewing people who actually fought the China Seas Campaign, rather then a ship of fresh, smartassed newbies, looking to shoot planes faster to show the W.Coast Navy how it’s done.
For the lack of a nail a shoe was lost, for the lack of a shoe a horse was lost, for the lack of a horse a Knight was lost, for the lack of a Knight, the battle was lost, for the loss of a battle the WAR was lost.
Forrestal, due to those who discarded combat proven safety measures was lost costing nine months of 24 hr attack operations in mid 67, it missed the RR yard and 9 months of supply interuption, photo intelligence, air support for our troops.
REMEMBER TET, it broke our American Spirit, NV’s popped up all over the south ‘six months’ after the loss of one of our most potent and precise air attack machines, and most certainly DID contribute somewhat to the buildup that lost the war in our hearts and minds forcing withdrawel..
That’s the truth, that’s the way it IS. And the only guy who escaped testifying under oath got a free pass, not a heroic transfer to the Oriskany. Got shot down, then idolized to the point, nobody would reconviene to get him under oath and on the record.
One can easily forgive error in panic John, but Running Away from your responsibility, that’s just not heroic in anybody’s mind. I for one resent it and bear many, many, unhealed mental scar’s and images to this day.

Character?

McCain has his tantrums, and several revealing numinous moments as a Napoleonic-like psycho case.
The following clip is offered as proof: it demonstrates one such tirade of a would-be tyrant --we know he is a liar-- and this conduct definitely disqualifies “Johnny boy” as a potential President of the UNITED States:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko8V28xYXbI&NR=1

>Arrow

Leefeller,

I was in sick bay until we docked at Subic Bay, but my roommate was keeping me in the loop until I was taken to the hospital there.  I rejoined the squadron a month later, when they returned to Jacksonville. 

McCain had just been promoted to LCDR, which gave us an overkill of 13 LCDRs in the squadron.  For the most part, he was just another pilot. 

The day after the accident, McCain asked the CO of our squadron, CDR Fred Dunning if he could take leave.  It was granted...not really a big deal at all.  With 5,000 people aboard and no flight operations to be conducted, there was little to do for air wing personnel during the four weeks it took the ship to return to Jacksonville, then on to Norfolk.  There were others on the ship given leave also.

This was never an issue with anyone in the Navy and we didn’t think twice about it.

Mary Hershberger’s article, Investigating John McCain’s Tragedy at Sea, is the most bogus twisting of the facts surrounding our terrible accident in 1967 to date.  My name is Dave Dollarhide and I was there.

Hershberger made contact with me recently and said she was just learning of the USS Forrestal fire and as a history professor was very interested in the facts.  After letting me talk about my personal experience as an A-4 pilot for a while, she began asking numerous questions about John McCain that I eventually realized were aimed at finding any inconsistencies in his story.  Our tragedy is not a place for political muckraking and I backed away from the conversation.

One theme from Hersberger’s article is that somehow, McCain contributed to the disaster by dropping one of his bombs to the flight deck. 

Imagine this.  A ten foot long rocket fires at supersonic speed into the four hundred gallon drop tank of the adjacent airplane twenty feet away.  There was an instantaneous fuel explosion strong enough to rock McCain’s airplane and mine.  Shrapnel ripped through deck personnel outside our airplanes and some flew under us hitting an A-4 in his drop tank a hundred feet or so forward of our position.  A chaotic conflagration followed.  After the fuel tank blast, McCain’s airplane was immediately surrounded by fire, which also rolled under my right wing. 

At this moment, does anyone really think he would take the time to reach over and with one hand hold a latching switch and the other hand pull the gear handle up to bypass the ground safety system that prevents inadvertent firing of weapons.  After that, he would need to arm the bomb’s station select switch, followed by turning on the master arm switch, then depress the bomb release button??????  Insane!  With the adrenalin flowing, we were just trying to get out of our cockpits and there is no way these things could have been done accidentally.  This all happened before the bombs started exploding.

Hershberger also says, “There was, in fact, a single bomb—not two—that dropped to the deck.” She has no way of knowing that!  Neither do I and I was there, injured on the deck no more than fifty feet from the bomb in front of McCain’s airplane when it exploded. 

There were nine one thousand bombs that exploded on the deck and most of them probably dropped to the deck before detonating.  One explosion was behind McCain’s airplane and was very likely his second bomb to fall to the deck. 

The fire caused the small explosive charges (CAD) in each bomb rack to ignite, forcing the ejector foot of each rack to extend, pushing the bombs to the deck.  …no switches required here.  The same high temperature later caused the M-65 bombs to detonate.  Hershberger uses unnamed “persons familiar with the ordnance” in her assertion that only pilot action could have caused a bomb to drop from an airplane.  She has quoted people who are misinformed.

I have no doubt that McCain thought the rocket hit his airplane.  This all happened in a few seconds and there was mass confusion.  Most certainly, he did nothing to contribute to the tragedy.  Hershberger’s assertion is completely irresponsible.

Other facts in her account are also false.

Hershberger obviously has political motives in writing this article.  Her politics are no business of mine, but she claims to be a historian in talking about a tragedy where many suffered and died.  A true historian is dedicated to preserving events of the past as they occurred.  She has engaged in exactly what she accuses John McCain of doing and has twisted history to suit her needs.

His military records need to be released. He is hoping people are dead or too old to remember or care.  Was he a person who because of his clout of an admiral grandfather and father given special treatment when the regular person would have been kicked out of the naval academy and later military or tortured as a POW when he got special treatment instead? Did Henry Kissinger save the McCain family from disgrace cause the Vietnamese were going to release him “Little Prince” and not other POW.s?  What is the truth of his entire life and career?
We have a right to the truth. And if he has nothing to hide then why not release the records.

The republican’s put a lying smear campaign of hate and fear out there like they did with Bush for the people to swallow but we want the truth this time not the lies again.

Character?

McCain has his tantrums, and several revealing numinous moments as a Napoleonic-like psycho case.

The following clip is offered as proof: it demonstrates one such tirade of a would-be tyrant --we know he is a liar-- and this conduct definitely disqualifies “Johnny boy” as a potential President of the UNITED States:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko8V28xYXbI&NR=1

>Arrow

RightWing, thanks again for the “heads up”.

Your admission that “The inquiry to this accident was just completed about 8 years ago, yes a very long time.” That is nearly 34 years AFTER the incident occurred! That should raise a red flag to any reader with a critical mind especially as McCain had risen to become a serious contender for the Republican presidency at the time of this investigation.

Now whether the Zuni rocket pins are inserted in the rear or nose http://www.midwaysaircraft.org/images/A4 002.jpg does not preclude your answering my question “how in the hell could the protective pins inserted in the rear [nose]of each Zuni rocket be blown out by the wind and onto the ships deck (which the investigator said had been reported to happen more than once previously because these pins were found all over the ships deck! I seriously question this happening even in a hurricane, don’t you? Just what kind of weapons designers and manufacturers does America have? I have always observed we have the finest haven’t you? This is bull shit!

Third, if these pins were known to blow out onto the deck by the wind, then don’t you think the ships weapons co-ordination board would have been aware of this and NOT allowed pigtails to be inserted early or are our best in the world trained naval personnel just a bunch of morons and overlook these things or do not report them to their superiors? Bull shit!

As I stated before I find it astonishing that all three errors would and supposedly did occur to set the Zuni rocket off accidentally starting with the alleged meeting when the “ship’s weapons co-ordination board met to discuss the men’s concerns a month before the fire [where] it ruled that flight crews could ignore Navy protocol on connecting the ‘pigtails.’ From now on they could plug them in not when the planes were on the catapult facing out to sea, but when they were on the rear deck facing each other. The ruling was never made official, but the crew began to act on it straight away.” Really???

Regarding the “rogue” power surge that is THEORIZED to have allegedly caused an electrical charge to fire off the Zuni rocket and your comparison of it to TWA Flight 800 blowing up and crashing into the Atlantic should raise a RED FLAG to any reader who has the least bit of knowledge about the latter’s investigation that this was just that, a theory, and suggested probable cause. However, eyewitness reports certainly suggested other probable causes, but with the suppression of evidence and the actual outright deception that we all know so well has occurred in the history of this country beginning with the Battleship Maine, Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, the Liberty incident, Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building, and now the events of 9/11/2001 one must look a little closer at the motives and methods of the belated Forrestal Fire Investigation and how it arrived at its conclusions.

Like I said previously, there should be an investigation of the investigation.

.

What purpose is this informating really serving? I’ve yet to read a response that justifies this information newsworthy. 

PS - Spraying to all whinners, move on, and move forward.

I am in no position to judge, but what bothers me most is that McCain has not authorised the release of both his military AND medical records.This makes one assume that whatever he has got to hide is not complimentary to his position on the respective issues, tantamount to lying. He could clear this up with release of his records and has chosen not to do so.

RightWing,

Thank you for the “heads up” link on YouTube titled Forrestal Disaster (Aircraft Carrier Explosion). I viewed all five of the segments Forrestal Disaster (Aircraft Carrier Explosion) and I was left with even more questions.

I won’t go into a complete de-bunking of this investigation as I neither have the time, money, or requisite professional knowledge to do so. But there are a few astonishing and questionable revelations that the investigator Radm. Massey came to during his probe.

First, I find it astonishing that all three errors would and supposedly did occur to set the Zuni rocket off accidentaally starting with the alleged meeeting when the “ship’s weapons co-ordination board met to discuss the men’s concerns a month before the fire [where] it ruled that flight crews could ignore Navy protocol on connecting the ‘pigtails.’ From now on they could plug them in not when the planes were on the catapult facing out to sea, but when they were on the rear deck facng each other. The ruling was never made official, but the crew began to act on it straight away.” Really???

Neatly inserted are video frames of a tape recorder as if the investigator had a recording of the meeting of the ships weapons co-ordination board and its unofficial ruling. Just what were the crews “concerns” being discussed and why would this dangerous procedure be adopted and just how much more efficient and effective would this new procedure be anyway. I require a lot more information here as I hope you would including the tapes! Until then, this is bull shit!

Secondly, how in the hell could the protective pins inserted in the rear of each Zuni rocket be blown out by the wind and onto the ships deck (which the investigator said had been reported to happen more than once previously because these pins were found all over the ships deck! I seriously question this happening even in a hurricane, don’t you? Just what kind of weapons designers and manufacturers does America have? I have always observed we have the finest haven’t you? This is bull shit!

Third, if these pins were known to blow out onto the deck by the wind, then don’t you think the
ships weapons co-ordination board would have been aware of this and NOT allowed pigtails to be inserted early or are our best in the world trained naval personnel just a bunch of morons and overlook these things or do not report them to their superiors? Bull shit!

Fourth, according to the official conspiracy theory, when the F-4 Phantom II switched over from external power to internal power a “rogue” power surge occurred that just happened to send an electrical current to the Zuni rocket that just happened to have its protective pin blown out by the wind that day and unintentionally fired because the new unofficial and I would add unjustifiable and criminally reckless procedure of plugging in the pigtail while the planes rockets were pointing directly at the other planes across the flight deck had been carried out. BULL Shit!!!!

There ought to be an investigation of the investigation!

Note also in the OFFICIAL TRAINING FILM “Trial By Fire: A Carrier Burns” that the United States Navy requires all of its flight deck training personnel to view that there is conveniently inserted a video clip of a jet plane firing a missle across the deck of an aircraft carrier while the planes wings are folded leading one to believe this is an actual archive video of the F-4 Phantom II that acccidentally fired its Zuni rocket to cause the fire on the Forrestal! except for the fact that this jet is firing its rocket ito the open ocean, the Forrestal’s A-4’s were reading for take off with their wings down, and there is NO archive video of this actual event happening on the Forrestal!

I would suggest we go back to the port side of the Forrestal and concentrate on the area underneath the three (3) A-4’s (one of which was McCains) where the fire started and look for the cause of the fire there.

Let me state up front that (a) I support Barack Obama, and (b) I lost my father in the Vietnam War.

That said, while there are a lot of things for which I take issue with John McCain, his service in Vietnam certainly isn’t one of them.

Obviously, McCain—who very could well have lost his life in the Forrestal tragedy—has his own unique personal perspective on what happened that day, and I’ll not dispute what he remembers about the accident.  Certainly, the extraordinarily close proximity of that missile’s errant path could well have left him with the understandable impression that his own A-4E aircraft had also been struck along with the jet just in front of him.

The Vietnam War’s been over for 33 years. Let’s move on, please. It serves no good purpose to dredge up this unfortunate incident.