A Veteran's Journey

Trivia Questions (Answers @ end)

1. Who said, “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”?
2. In what movie (and who said it) did we hear: “This isn’t a hospital! It’s an insane asylum.”?
3. What song (and who sang it) did we hear the following:
   Nights in white satin
   Never reaching the end
   Letters I’ve written
   Never meaning to send

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At my age (almost 71), I tend to think back on times during my life and, as my dad often said, “pontificate.”

Yeah … I had to look that one up.

Maybe that’s why I continue to write, “A Veteran’s Journey.”

Regardless, like many of my/our age, I look back and sometimes wonder, “What if?”

Flight Operations

Aircraft carrier flight operations on a “typical” day at sea—at least, back in 1975—often ran from 1000 through midnight.

I was in Crash (V-1 Division) and we were required to be on deck an hour before flight ops and remain an hour afterwards. It made for a long 16-hour day, but when you’re at sea, what else ya gotta do, right?

At that time, we had an MB-5 Crash truck (crew of 4), and two MD-3 tractors rigged up for firefighting duties. Each tractor would have a driver and a crewmember, who rode on a seat on the back. Right in front of him was a “basket” with a tank of PKP firefighting powder and a 100’ hose.

The Crash tractors were easier to drive around the flight deck than the MB-5, simply because they were small and more maneuverable.

Since I’d driven the MB-5 in Crash while stationed at NAS Agana, Guam, it was natural for me to be one of the drivers.

The big difference between Guam and the flight deck of an aircraft carrier was, well, space. There wasn’t much maneuvering space on the flight deck (about 4 acres total), what with 50-60 aircraft parked and moving around during flight ops, plus 200 personnel.

But we made do and made it work.

The A-7 Corsair Bomb “Incident”

Somewhere in the Pacific—Westpac ’75

One day at sea during daylight flight ops, I was driving the Crash truck. We parked just aft of the waist cats (midship) because they were launching aircraft off the two bow cats.

An A-7 Corsair was on Cat#2, ready to be launched. The plane was fully armed with missiles and bombs, a typical configuration even during peacetime, and everything looked normal. The JBD (Jet Blast Deflector) was up, the plane at full power, and the Shooter signaled to launch the plane.

Everything went smoothly, almost …  

The A-7 dropped one of its 500-pound bombs on the flight deck on the way out. It skidded to a halt about fifty feet short of the ship’s bow. I’m not even sure if the pilot was aware of the mishap.

Everybody in my truck saw it, and there was one big collective “Oh shit!” moment. The catapult gear crew scattered, clearing the flight deck within moments, heading in all directions.

We didn’t know how these bombs worked, whether it was armed and ready to explode, or whether we should simply bend over and kiss our ass goodbye.

Bos’n Robuck (the Air Bos’n and Crash HMFIC) was the first one to approach the bomb.

CWO2 Tyrone Robuck was a physically short, thin, and sinewy man from Louisiana, but he’d made several tours in Vietnam as a Marine, so he wasn’t one to mess with. Besides, he was a good guy and always had our backs.

We watched in apprehension as he casually walked up to the bomb and looked it over. He then turned, looked directly at me, and signaled for me to drive up closer.

I looked at my crew, then shook my head and politely mumbled, “Hell no! That’s a friggin’ (I used a different word) live bomb.”

Around that time, a couple of the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) guys entered the flight deck (we had 4 EOD team members on the cruise), inspected the bomb, and confirmed it was safe—it was not armed.

I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out my good friend Glenn Law was the Yellow Shirt directing that A-7. Years later, he told me he made record time hauling ass aft to the fantail after that bomb dropped.

What did we in Crash do?

Gary Borne, another good friend stationed in Guam with me and Glenn, drove the Crash forklift over to the bomb. The squadron ordnance guys helped Gary move it onto the forklift, and someone directed him to dump it overboard.

Everything was all right, and we got back to regular flight ops. Just another fine day in the Navy.

USS Forrestal Fire

Probably the most horrific flight deck fire in US Naval history occurred on the USS Forrestal (CV-59) on July 29, 1967.

A flight deck camera captured it, and flight deck crews still watch what started the fire and how they fought it.

You can’t evacuate the ship and call the fire department when you have a fire; you ARE the fire department.

The fire on the USS Forrestal started just before 1100. The second launch of the day was being readied when a five-inch Zuni rocket, for unknown reasons, shot across the aft end of the flight deck from an F-4B Phantom, starboard to port, rupturing the four-hundred-gallon fuel tank on an A-4 Skyhawk jet parked on the port side. The fuel ignited instantly and, with the help of cross-deck winds, the fire spread, causing adjacent fuel tanks and ordnance to rupture on other parked jets.

Flight deck crews, ordnance men, and firefighters all struggled to clear away bombs and ammunition, even throwing ordnance over the side of the ship.

From there, it escalated as more fuel tanks ruptured, more fuel dumped onto the flight deck, and more ordnance cooked off.

The pilot of the plane that was first struck by the Zuni missile was Lieutenant Commander Fred White—he didn’t survive. One of the other A-4 pilots, who was in the cockpit at the time, was John S. McCain, who later became a United States Senator and ran for President in 2008. McCain jumped from his cockpit and out over the plane’s refueling probe, dropped to the deck and escaped the fire.

Seven bombs detonated on the flight deck during that horrific disaster. The flight deck fire was under control within an hour, but below decks, fires burned for more than twelve hours.

A total of 134 men died, 300 were injured, and fifteen were blown off, fell, or jumped overboard. Of those killed, 50 were in their racks on the 03 level, just below the flight deck. A total of 21 aircraft were destroyed, and another 41 damaged.

My Current Vietnam War Book Project

Perhaps the reason I write about these two incidents is that I’m currently working on a book about the 48 men from my area (Alachua County, Florida) who went to Vietnam but died in service.

One of those men was James Mikel Runnels. He was from Gainesville—my hometown—born a few years before me in 1947. He graduated from Gainesville High School in 1965 (I graduated in 1972).

Mike was Navy … an ADJ (Aviation Machinist’s Mate-Jets), assigned to the VF-11 “Red Rippers” fighter squadron (F-4 Phantom jets).

The Forrestal had been on a Westpac, on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin, 240 km N-NE of Dong Ha, conducting combat operations. It was the fifth day of operations, and the crew was starting the second launch cycle of the day.

Airman James Mikel Runnels was one of the 134 men killed. His squadron, VF-11, lost 47 men during that fire.

I had personally seen that video dozens of times during my time in the Navy. As the V-1 Division Training Officer, we often used that fire video to “walk through” the firefighting techniques and discuss the “what ifs.”

Of course, there’s a huge difference between watching a film about a fire and actually being in the middle of the fire, fighting it from all sides and from within.

This doesn’t happen very often, but now and then I’ll think back to that A-7 Corsair dropping the bomb onto the flight deck right in front of me and wonder, what if …

Until we meet again,
Andy

Andy Adkins is a US Navy veteran (’73-77) and the author of several books (www.azadkinsiii.com), many of which are free downloads (PDF, eBook format). He is currently retired and lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife and life-long soulmate, Becky.

Previous Blogs mentioned in this Post:

• #94—Flight Deck Operations: Aircraft Launch
• #98—Flight Ops: Aircraft Recovery
• #67—Flight Ops: A Day in the Life of Crash & Salvage
• #53—You Always Remember Your First
• #54—Westpac ’75 Aircraft Carrier Squadrons

Answers

1. Carl Jung.
2. M*A*S*H (1970), Major Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan (Sally Kepperman).
3. Nights in White Satin (1967), The Moody Blues; written by David Lanz.