The Forrestal

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001

Answers

Thanks, Lars, for keeping this memory alive. Very few want to remember the sacrifice, courage, and tragedy of that day.

I sailed briefly on the Forrestal while she was deployed as a training carrier out of Pensacola. I was in training as an Aviation Safety Officer at the time, and was required to dissect the fire incident in painful detail, and to present the "lessons learned" to the current crew. Although I wasn't a medical doctor (I was Medical Service Corp, not Medical Corp), the Navy's attitude was: if you're a 'Doc', you are a part of the emergency triage team, and you had better well know what to do if this happened while you were aboard.

As an aside, my training officer was a Naval Flight Surgeon. CAPT. C. had the misfortune to be strapped in to a T-2 on the Lexington on an almost equally tragic incident. This was shortly before the training requirements were transferred to the Forrestal. CAPT C. had just landed and was awaiting clearance to proceed to the elevator. Flight students (including me) were beginning their first ever carrier landings. Just as CAPT C. was given clearance to raise the canopy, the student on approach got off track, got too slow, stalled, and became inverted just over the fantail, heading for the Island. Following one bad decision after another, this student pilot decided much too late to eject, upside down, strait into the deck, within feet of CAPT C's plane. The student of course died on impact. The student's plane continued over CAPT C's plane, and crashed further forward. In spite of the flames and destruction erupting around her, CAPT C. remained inside her aircraft until the guys with the foam got to her. If she had tried to egress or eject, she would almost certainly have perished, and would have put even more sailors in danger. She was cool under fire. One of the bravest aviators I have ever met. To fly with her was a privilege.

Few people realize or understand the risk and sacrifice our people in uniform take on a daily basis. Thanks, Lars, for the reminder.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc@no.way), July 31, 2001.

Riveting.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), July 31, 2001.

Carlos,

Riveting indeed. The only identifiable parts of the unfortunate (and perhaps poorly trained) student was his helmet and ejection seat-pan.

I find it interesting that the only comment to this story (and the original Forrestal post by Lars) is yours, and flippant one at that. I'm not sure what that says about this forum.

As another aside, the story I was taught in training about the fire on board the Forrestal is a lot less flattering to LT(jg) McCain.'s role. He is liked by the Navy because he is one of "our own" rather than by his performance as a Naval Aviator and his questionable behavior as a POW. I could be wrong, but I think he was shot down on his 2nd mission. I've met the gentleman at a lecture he gave at Newport @ 10 years ago, and I was impressed by him. He gave an excellent lecture about the "knocking" code of the POWs while he was at the Hanoi Hilton. However, he was very evasive on questions about his alleged behavior by his co-POWs regarding his special treatment. There's not really anything I could hang my hat on, but something wasn't quite right about his answers.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc@no.way), August 01, 2001.

Spindoc, I know you're not supposed to give in to the enemy, but I don't see how anyone could be trained to withstand the treatment POW's got. I met one of the POW's who had been held in captivity from nearly the beginning. He told us what they did to him. Some of it, not all of it. I don't see how he survived, and I couldn't pass judgement on him if he broke.

-- helen (sorry@these.things), August 01, 2001.

Spindoc--

I didn't think Carlos' remark was flippant. I took it as respectful. Unless one has direct experience (as you), it's not possible to "say" much about such an event. That is why I just posted the link sans comment.

Interesting about your reaction to McCain. I want to like him, sometimes I do like him,........BUT.....je ne sais quoi.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), August 01, 2001.

helen,

Agreed, none of us know how we will react in that kind of very personal hell. Indeed, most pilots I knew feared capture more than death, for this very reason.

As a result of the experiences of POWs in Viet Nam, the Navy made some big changes in the way it trained flight crews. Especially in escape and evasion. But it was recognized that if captured, the rules changed. It was understood that no normal human could withstand the sustained kinds of abuse, drugs, and mind-games available to a modern enemy. However, the Navy decided that it did not relieve the POW of the responsibility to resist at every opportunity, and if the chance opened, to attempt an escape. That new "understanding" made for a very murky blanket policy. It made for some very…uh…interesting situations during the Gulf War.

My comments about McCain came from some of the reports and comments by a few of his fellow inmates at the Hanoi Hilton, who knew him, and experienced much of the same treatment he did. They didn't ask for anything more than they themselves endured. How am I to gauge this man? McCain ran for President; am I not bound to judge his character, in comparison to others who went through similar trials?

I don't really have a good answer. I've met him. I liked him. I agree with many of his policies (not campaign finance reform, but then again I am a libertarian. But I have serious questions about his fitness to govern.

Lars,

You're right, I was too hasty in judging Carlos' remark. In my defense, the event was (and remains) a hot button for me, even after more than a decade.

I had to show the flight deck videos of the incident to class after class for months, and it gave me nightmares. I did not know the student personally, but I've known many like him, and can't help but wonder how he slipped through the cracks, or that perhaps we weren't watching closely enough.

Carlos, please accept my apologies for jumping the gun in my knee-jerk assumptions for your comment.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc@no.way), August 01, 2001.

McCain's an asshole that plays the POW card when it is convenient to him politically..... He's turned into a media whore and has avoided the voters in his home state of Arizona all year. We see and hear more of him on national media than we do in our local presses. He answers to us here in arizona, not the democrats of New York or Boston..... hence the recall movement against him here. I doubt he would have the honour of resigning when he loses the recall election though..... we have learned here just how much his word is worth...

-- Cactus Jack (30 miles from water@Arizona.com), August 02, 2001.