The Silent Screwtop of VAW-123, Part 2

Near the E2-C Hawkeye on static display at Ely Park on Naval Station Norfolk stands a monument to three naval aviators lost on August 15, 2007, when their Hawkeye, Greyhawk 620, crashed shortly after launch from USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) during training operations in the Atlantic. (M.C. Farrington)

By Captain Alexander G. Monroe, USN (Ret)
HRNM Docent & Contributing Writer

In the last post exploring the history of the E-2C Hawkeye on static display at Ely Park at Naval Station Norfolk, some operations in which Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 123 (VAW-123) took part in were outlined briefly. Now may be an appropriate time to learn more of its rich heritage.

An E-2A Hawkeye with VAW-123 sits on the flight line at NAS Norfolk, Virginia, in June 1967.  (Defense Visual Information Archive) 

During the Vietnam War, the initial 1967 combat deployment for the squadron was aborted by the terrible fire aboard USS Forrestal (CVA 59) in which 134 crewmen were killed. Though one Hawkeye was on the catapult awaiting launch when the fire began, it was rapidly cleared of personnel, and there was only minor damage to squadron aircraft. On April 8, 1972, VAW-123 again deployed for wartime operations as part of Carrier Air Wing Three, embarked in USS Saratoga (CVA 60). The early part of the transit to Vietnam was devoted to preparation for hostile operations. Included in the topics reviewed were rules of engagement for Linebacker I and II operations, E-2 coordination during downed pilot evolutions, navigation assistance available to attack aircraft, flight coordination to coast-in-points and targets during armed reconnaissance operations. Careful preparation bore fruit during the deployment which included 175 days spent in operations on line. The squadron was instrumental in conducting a five-hour operation resulting in rescuing and returning to the ship an aviator who had been downed by anti-aircraft missiles near Vinh and was stranded 17 miles within enemy territory.

On December 18, 1972, the squadron returned to Yankee Station for its last on line period,[1] and the ship returned to Norfolk on February 13, 1973. The squadron had provided 97 percent of Airborne Early Warning coverage for Commander Task Force 77 during Linebacker I and II. It had played a key role in Operation Ironhand, in which the Navy and Air Force worked together to suppress surface-to-air missile sites. Additionally, it earned the Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet (AIRLANT) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Safety Awards. A key aspect of the April 9, 1973 change of command was the squadron being awarded the AIRLANT Battle Efficiency E. Commander James D. “Jack” Larison, the outgoing squadron CO, observed that combat gave the opportunity to see the result of training and readiness.[2]

Times since the end of the Vietnam War have been eventful for this country and for VAW-123. The nation has faced a series of challenges as a result of shifts in world order and the alliances to which we are a party. Adversaries also broadened from the armed forces of nation-states to nonstate actors, culminating in a direct attack upon the United States. From 1989 to the present, domestic and international operations have involved the squadron and the eight aircraft carriers in which they have been embarked. The names of operations in which they have participated are a partial catalog of contingencies in which national power, often in tandem with that of other nations, has been applied: Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Deny Flight/Deliberate Force, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, Inherent Resolve, and New Dawn. Their consistent performance[3] in highly diverse operational settings has played and continues to play a vital role in maintaining world stability and national safety and survival.

An air-to-air silhouetted left side view of an E-2 Hawkeye airborne-early-warning (AEW) aircraft assigned to the aircraft carrier USS America (CV 66), May 6,1981. (National Archives and Records Administration via Naval History and Heritage Command) 

Another mission that VAW-123 and other carrier airborne early warning squadrons have been deeply invested in was alluded to in the squadron’s 1990 Command History. Commander Michael L Maurer noted that VAW-123 “opened the year with a detachment to NAS Key West, Florida, as part of the Congressionally mandated War on Drugs.” According to some observers, what was needed to stem the flow of dangerous drugs into the country was a robust anti-drug campaign that only the armed forces could conduct. Because of the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act, armed forces could only provide “detection and monitoring,” with “interdiction and arrest” left to civilian law enforcement authorities.[4] The squadron sent detachments to NAS Key West in January and May 1990 and to Howard Air Force Base in the former Canal Zone to participate in Panama Surveillance Operations from August 13 to September 1, 1990.[5] Detachments of the squadron deployed to the Naval Station at Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico[6] from August to October 1996 and worked in “close conjunction with Coast Guard and DEA assets to hold a non-stop vigil in a dedicated effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States…”[7] The Drug War goes on to this very day, and seizures have been impressive.[8] Overall effectiveness is hard to evaluate because while amounts of illegal drugs seized are known, amounts shipped are not[9]

Pilots from Airborne Early Warning Squadron 123 (VAW-123) takes notes in the ready room of USS America (CV 66), probably during Operation Desert Shield. (Defense Visual Information Archive)

Desert Shield/Desert Storm (August 2, 1990-January 16, 1991 and January 17, 1991-February 28, 1991) were responses to the invasion of oil rich Kuwait by its neighbor Iraq on August 2, 1990. The Saudi Arabian government requested assistance four days later, and by November 29, 1990, the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 678, which included a demarche requiring Iraq to leave Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or face forced ejection. VAW 123 was embarked in USS America (CV 66) as part of Carrier Air Wing One and had left Norfolk on December 28, 1990. Following this rapid deployment, it arrived in the Red Sea on January 17th, 1991, the day after commencement of Desert Storm operations. It operated from the America in the Red Sea and from a detachment based ashore at Sheik Isa airfield on Bahrain. It provided traditional VAW functions of threat detection and control of raids against coastal and strategic targets in Kuwait and Iraq. Its aircraft controlled successful destruction of two Iraqi MiG 21s by F-18 aircraft, and in February 1991 controlled eleven delivery packages that destroyed two Scud missile sites.[10]

The wide variety of and location of VAW-123 operations is shown among other places in 1993 in Operation Deny Flight a NATO effort to enforce a “no fly” zone over Bosnia Herzegovina set forth in UN Resolutions 781 and 816. On August 30, 1993, it became the second Hawkeye Squadron to conduct overland air operations in the area, and these continued until October when the squadron embarked in USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), transited the Suez Canal enroute to Somalia to provide humanitarian assistance in Operation Restore Hope. To that date the squadron had flown 25 years of accident free operations, had flown 51,526 hours and recorded 11,755 arrested carrier landings. In Somalia it provided flight following operations for United Nations’ humanitarian relief flights in and out of Mogadishu.

Petty Officer 1st Class Jonathan Butler from Norfolk, Virginia, verifies the torque on a pitch actuator on an E-2C Hawkeye assigned to the Screwtops of VAW-123 in the hangar bay of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). As an aviation machinist mate aboard Ike, Butler is responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting aircraft components.  Ike and its carrier strike group are deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, maritime security operations and theater security operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class J. Alexander Delgado/ Defense Visual Information Archive)

The most involved of the contingency operations has been Enduring Freedom, which resulted from the attack on the United States by Islamic extremists. On September 11, 2001, 19 individuals hijacked four commercial airliners and flew two of them into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and in so doing murdered over three thousand innocent citizens. Enduring Freedom, which began on October 7, 2001, was fashioned to destroy places of refuge chiefly in Pakistan and Pakistan for Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents, though other locations such as the Philippines were involved in the nascent Global War on Terror (GWOT). The effort resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, sponsor of The 9/11 attack and neutralization of considerable insurgent strength. The scope and variety of operations marked a shift for VAW-123 to support expeditionary warfare from land based detachment such as Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The 2003 squadron history noted ability to provide “an airborne element of theater command… supporting air, ground and Naval Operations.”

On March 20, 2016, an E-2C Hawkeye assigned to the Screwtops of VAW-123 performs pre-flight checks on the flight decks of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) during a Composite Training Unit Exercize (COMPUTEX) in preparation for a future deployment. (Defense Visual Information Archive) 

Finally and most important, the display at Ely Park recognizes the service and sacrifice of three aviators from the VAW-120 Greyhawks, the replacement training activity for all aviators bound for the VAW community, who were lost in a crash after launching from USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).[11] They were Lieutenant Ryan K. Betton, the Aircraft Commander, Lieutenant Cameron “Gazer” Hall, and Lieutenant junior grade Jerry R. Smith.[12]

Results of the Judge Advocate General’s Manual investigation were released about a year after the crash. It recited known facts: that the aircrew was practicing take offs and landings from the ship in clear weather and calm seas, about 150 miles southeast of its Norfolk, Virginia homeport. It was Lt. j.g. Smith’s first night catapult shot. Just after the 2300 launch it appeared to climb, then lost altitude and crashed in 3000 feet of water after about ten seconds of flight. Investigators considered any and all explanations for the mishap. The Truman deck log shows that the aircraft entered the water at 2311. Twenty-four seconds later, rescue personnel were notified and Truman’s engines were stopped on an emergency basis and placed on “maneuvering” combination. The commanding officer and navigator were on the bridge. A plane guard helicopter from HS-7 searched, as did other aircraft. By thirteen minutes later both port and starboard Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) were in the water and searchlights energized and scanned the surface. Though a “green light at bearing 220 (R)” was noted, only a fuel slick and aviator’s helmet were found.

Though there was some indication of malfunction of an angle of attack indicator the day before the fatal crash, the problem could not be duplicated and the plane’s original maintenance record was on board the aircraft and lost in the crash. The Board held that, "the evidence is not sufficient to form an opinion on the cause or causes of the crash," adding that no debris had been recovered or was likely to be recovered that "will adequately explain the cause of this crash."[13]

A memorial service held at Norfolk Naval Station’s David Adams Memorial Chapel on August 23, 2007, was a poignant time of remembrance in which common threads joining the three aviators emerged: (1) love of flying and the Navy; (2) love and support of family; and (3) respect and admiration of those with whom they served. Commander Jeff Trent, the Greyhawk Commanding Officer eulogized them as those “who embodied the best about our Armed Forces…they didn’t sit on the sidelines.” He continued, noting that, “he couldn’t imagine the depth of grief of the families.” He added a note of lightness to the proceedings by noting that “Gazer” Hall had a reputation abound the squadron as a “joker” and that he liked to invite him to his stateroom “so he could hear his hunting and fishing stories.[14]

Equally moving were the tributes of others. Lt. Jason Buckley recalled Lt. Betton, the aircraft commander and a Virginia Military Institute graduate, as a “true southern gentleman even though he was from Michigan and spoke Canadian French.” Lt. Josh Wenker described Lt. Cameron Hall from Louisiana as, “a little cocky…such a kid at heart that you couldn’t help but like him.” Lt. John Horn remembered that Lt. j.g. Jerry Smith, “gave him a phony winning lottery ticket on his 24th birthday,” and that most important, “whenever I needed someone to talk to, Jerry was always there.” [15] Lt. Betton’s widow moved some present to tears when she described how their son Ian ran to his father a few weeks before at a fly in. Eric Smith, Lt. j.g. Smith’s brother, noted that he thought of his brother’s philosophy–of living each day as it were one’s last. The families and others in the congregation were surrounded by the elements of Navy ritual and ceremony from which they seemed to gather strength and solace from hearing of the lives and achievements of these young men.[16]

The E2-C Hawkeye on static display at Ely Park on Naval Station Norfolk. (M.C. Farrington)

The display and associated monument provide lessons in performance, perseverance and sacrifice. In May 2018, Norfolk television channel WTKR named the Screwtops “Squadron of the Month” after it was awarded the Battle Efficiency E for the second consecutive time. Commander Patrick Dzieken, VAW-123’s Commanding Officer, stated that the cameras were standing among, “the best men and women in the U.S. Navy” and, “that awards such as the E don’t happen by themselves, but fine men and women of the Screwtops make them happen.” Lt. j.g. Smith’s brother spoke of perseverance, taking each day after the terrible accident as it comes.

As William Faulkner put it in accepting a 1949 Nobel Prize, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” The monument below the Hawkeye at Ely Park is a powerful reminder that, as the Betton family said in a statement, “Freedom sometimes requires the ultimate sacrifice, but we are thankful that Ryan was willing to protect the liberties on which the country was founded.”[17]

Notes:

[1] This period saw the massive bombardment of the Hanoi/Haiphong area known as Linebacker II, generally thought to have ended the conflict.

[2] CO VAW-123 Ltr 5700 ADMIN/bah Ser 98 Command History dated February 11, 1973.

[3] On October 16th, 1993, while conducting Deny Flight operations, the squadron completed 25 years of accident-free operating.

[4] The U.S. Coast Guard has law enforcement power under Title Four of the United States Code.

[5] CO VAW-123 Ltr 5750 Ser 00/CO/11 Command History 1990 dated April 13, 1991.

[6] The Coast Guard was loaned Hawkeye aircraft but after a fatal crash of Coast Guard aircraft number 3105 on August 24, 1990, it returned the Hawkeyes to the Navy.

[7] CO VAW-123 Ltr 5750 Ser 00/47, Command History dated March 18, 1997.

[8] The squadron sent detachments to Naval Station Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico in August, September and October 1996; See CO VAW-123 Ltr 5750 Ser 00/47 of March 18, 1997

[9] Caribbean Barrier: U.S. Atlantic Command Support of Counterdrug Operations 1989-1997, U.S. Joint Forces Command Special Historical Study, Office of the Command Historian, Headquarters, U.S. Joint Forces Command, Norfolk, Virginia, December 1990, pp. 79-80.

[10] VAW Ltr 5750 Ser 00/C011, Command History dated April 13, 1991, and VAW LTR 5750 Ser00/004 dated February 25, 1992

[11] “E2C Hawkeye Crashes, Navy conducting Search,” Navy News Story 070816, Commander Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet Public Affairs Office, August 16, 2007; See also USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) Deck logbook of August 15, 2007.

[12] “Navy identifies 3 aviators lot in crash off carrier,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Kate Wiltrout and Louis Hansen, August 17, 2007.

[13] “Navy can’t pinpoint the cause of fatal Hawkeye crash,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Kate Wiltrout, August 26, 2008; See Also SIR Form 3750/8.

[14] “Memorial Service held for fallen aviators,” Navy News Story 070831, Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elizabeth Gilson, August 31, 2007 and “Family, Friends Recall Aviators,” Newport News Daily Press, Stephanie Heinatz, August 24, 2007.

[15] Ibid.

[16] “1500 gather to remember 3 Navy fliers killed at sea,” Norfolk, Virginian-Pilot, Kate Wiltrout, August 24th, 2007; See again Heinatz above

[17] See Channel Three Squadron of the Month program of May 31, 2007 and also “Suffolk Navy Pilot Lost,” Newport News Daily Press, Stephanie Heinatz, August 18, 2007.


About the author: Captain Alexander "Sandy" G. Monroe, a retired surface warfare officer, is the author of In Service to Their Country: Christchurch School and the American Uniformed Services (2014) as well as official histories on U.S. Atlantic Command counternarcotic operational assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies and the treatment of Haitian asylum seekers at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was also dispatched to the Arabian Gulf on assignment for the director of naval history during Operation Earnest Will.

Editor's note: This and every HRNM blog post by a contributing writer reflects the opinions and core beliefs of the writer and should not be construed as representing the official policies or opinions of the museum, the Department of the Navy, or the United States Government.

29 Years Ago: A Visit from the Commander-in-Chief

The Hampton Roads Naval Museum blog commonly features stories about the great battles and campaigns our Navy's ships and personnel have participated in and what roles they played within them.  Ships and Sailors play a vital role in making war, but they also play a less-heralded yet no less important role in diplomacy.  In light of the death last night of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, it is an appropriate time to mention a brief visit he made to the aircraft carrier Forrestal (CV 59) off Malta on December 1, 1989, to express his appreciation for the Navy's support the day before his first meeting as president with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.  

Although the carrier played no direct role in the history-making meeting, which was supposed to take place between Soviet and American cruisers, Forrestal was there to lend support or provide overwhelming force as needed.  Her aircraft also provided airborne early warning and guarded against allowing any unauthorized aircraft approaching the area of the summit.  Before arriving at his ultimate destination, the Norfolk-based guided missile cruiser Belknap (CG 26), which was floating around 400 yards from the Soviet guided missile cruiser Slava in Marsaxlokk Bay, the former naval aviator spent about three hours touring around Forrestal, eating lunch with the crew in the enlisted mess, watching flight operations, as well as opining about the importance of the summit in a speech made to the crew made in the aircraft carrier's hangar bay. 

Near the carrier-controlled approach radar platform aboard USS Forrestal (CV 59), President George H.W. Bush reacts to Sailors and members of the international press calling out from above him near the Pilot Aid Landing Television (PLAT) camera station aboard the aircraft carrier on December 1, 1989.  Showing him around for the flight operations segment of his three-hour tour is the commander of Carrier Air Wing Six, Captain Fields Richardson. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

To understand how important the Malta Summit and those like it were, one must see it within the context of the times.  Throughout the decade, the specter of nuclear war was a staple in Western popular culture.  Television shows such as The Day After (1983), Threads (1984) and feature films such as The Terminator (1984) underscored the fatalistic undertones of the day.  That sense of fatalism also extended behind the Iron Curtain (possibly intensified by President Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech on March 8, 1983), which arguably contributed to the September 1, 1983 shootdown of Korean Air Lines flight 007 by a Soviet fighter over the Sea of Japan and the tactical nuclear strike the Soviets came within a hair's breadth of launching against NATO forces participating in Exercise Able Archer in Europe that November; the second most serious incident of its kind after the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Because of the unexpectedly rough weather, neither the Soviet nor American warships turned out to be stable enough to hold the Malta Summit, so the talks were moved to the Soviet cruise liner Maxim Gorky.  While House photographer David Valdez captured the proceedings between General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (far left) and President George H.W. Bush (far right). (National Archives and Records Administration)

President Ronald Reagan subsequently launched the initiative to reach out to Premier Gorbachev, whose courage and fortitude, not to mention his popularization of the word glasnost (openness), brought the two superpowers back from the brink.  The openings made by their meeting in Reykjavik in 1986, plus others held in Washington, Moscow, and New York over the following three years, resulted in the conditions that facilitated Gorbachev's summit with President Bush in Malta.  Yet the frenetic changes overtaking the streets of Germany and Eastern Europe in late-1989 were beginning to overshadow the comparatively sedate high-level discussions taking place in the Mediterranean, which NBC veteran Tom Brokaw quipped were "already being described as the seasick summit."

Only three weeks before Bush's visit to the Forrestal, on live TV, East German Politburo spokesman Guenter Schabowski responded to a reporter's question as to when the checkpoints between his country and West Germany would be opened, and he simply replied, "...this is immediately, without delay." Spontaneously, citizens of East and West Berlin came together and began whacking away at the infamous Berlin Wall with pick axes, hammers, and anything else they could find in a cathartic cacophony.  

President Bush brought a piece of that wall with him on his visit to the Forrestal; literally a piece of the peace he was helping foster on that short visit 29 years ago. 

Thirty Years Ago: A Ghost in the Working Party?

About this time each year we like to roll out a nautical ghost story or some other tale broaching the supernatural. There are few left, however, that have not been brought forth over and over so many times from multiple sources until there is hardly a person alive with an interest in the subject who has not heard about nor read them. With this in mind I am dusting off an old story that I have only repeated to a few people over the years. While not a believer in such things myself, I will grant that the unexplainable can sometimes happen. One such event reportedly happened to a fellow Sailor on a working party I was assigned to aboard the aircraft carrier Forrestal (CV 59) some years back.

Originally photographed in 2011 by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Nicholas A. Groesch aboard USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) in the Western Pacific Ocean, this working party passing along chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) kits, with an extra ghostly member inserted, serves as a convenient illustration for this Halloween-themed article. (Photo illustration by M.C. Farrington)

During the entirety of the history of the U.S. Navy, ships have never been entirely self-sufficient. While the dismal and dirty drudgery of loading coal disappeared a century ago with the ascendance of fuel oil-fired boilers and, later, gas turbines and nuclear reactors, the basic staples required by those manning war vessels the world over have not changed. Sooner or later, provisions must be taken aboard, whether from a pier or underway. Today, the Navy has logistics specialists to oversee the efficient procurement and management of those provisions, but there has never been enough of them on any ship to take these supplies onboard by themselves. Taking on essential supplies that all hands use has always been an all-hands effort, disproportionately allotted to lower-ranking Sailors, of which I was one aboard Forrestal.

On the Forrestal, there were few mechanical conveyors to bring frozen packages down into the refrigerated “reefers” below. Most of a large shipment of food and other consumables would be taken down into the hold using only Sailor power. Four or five decks down into the neither regions of the carrier, wax-coated cardboard packages, taken from palletized cargo hoisted onto the hangar bay during underway replenishment, were passed from hand to hand for what seemed like endless hours, down a vertical access trunk plunging straight to the refrigerated reefers of the hold. As one might expect, the spaces at the bottom were cold, dark, and a little slippery after the humid air of the North Arabian Sea reached them.

During most of the working parties I was assigned to, there wasn’t much talking. At least, it wasn’t the kind of talking that would pass for polite conversation. Every so often, however, the pace would let up as an empty pallet up in the hangar bay was moved aside and a new one staged. During the few minutes of respite, the Sailors of the working party could sit down, stretch, or even talk. The topic of conversation one particular day was an entity called “George,” the existence of which had been recently confirmed to the news media by the ship’s public affairs office.

The Sailor working closest to me claimed that he had an experience with George. He had been working with one other man at the bottom of a vertical access trunk that terminated at two reefer spaces. They had just finished filling up one reefer and had just opened the hatch leading into another empty one. One new problem that developed was that they could not get the lights in the space to turn on, but a much worse problem quickly became apparent. Despite having to traverse a further 25 feet to place the boxes along the opposite bulkhead of the newly-opened space, the petty officer overseeing the work above had refused to send down any more men to bridge the gap. The man at the end of the chain would have to quickly run each new box across the reefer from the entrance after receiving it from the second-to-last man (the teller of the tale) at the bottom of the trunk. 

Meanwhile, a box continued to come down about every five seconds.

U.S. Navy Damage Controlman Fireman Josh Steiger hands a frozen goods package to Electrician's Mate 3rd Class Joseph Spangenberg in a storage freezer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) at sea in an undisclosed location Sept. 23, 2010. The material condition of the freezer, not to mention the food being stored within, appears to be of markedly higher quality aboard this Nimitz-class carrier than it was for the author doing similar work aboard USS Forrestal. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Tyler Caswell/Released)

Despite the new challenges they were facing, the Sailor at the doorway tried to keep up with the pace. After handing off the first box to the Sailor inside the darkened space, he pivoted upward to catch the next box being handed down from above, but he was shocked when a pair of hands emerged from the pitch-black doorway and grabbed it from his hands when he pivoted downward again. After the following box dropped into his hands, he pivoted back down to the Sailor who was again back in the doorway and asked him, “How’d you do that?” as he handed over the box.

“How’d I do what?” the man replied breathlessly.

“How did you get back here so fast?”

“I got back just now.”

“No, you grabbed the last box just a few seconds ago and now you’re back again.”

“No I didn’t. I just got back.”

Meanwhile, more boxes were coming down the access trunk unabated, so the two had to put their argument on hold, yet neither of them were able to keep the pace after that, nor were they ever able to sort out just what had happened.

Neither could I, after hearing the tale that day down at the bottom of a similar trunk near a similarly dank, dark reefer space. But there’s one thing I did know.

“George is supposed to be an officer; a ‘khaki,’ right?”

“That’s what I heard,” replied the Sailor.

“Then it can’t be George,” I said, “because no khaki, living or dead, would ever come pitch in all the way down here.”   

Fifty Years Ago: Eyewitness to an Inferno Finds "Blue Eyes"

By Julius J. Lacano
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

While attending Recruit training at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, every potential sailor goes through basic firefighting and damage control training. Among their lessons is a film called Learn or Burn. This film, along with the training film, Trial by Fire: A Carrier Fights for Life, tells the story of a tragedy that brought about sweeping changes to the United States Navy. While these films give today’s sailors a glimpse into the terror and chaos of the event as it unfolded, for others that glimpse is a memory that has yet to be erased from their minds.


This undated photograph showing launching operations aboard USS Forrestal (CVA 59) during the mid-1960s shows a similar aircraft spotting configuration to that used on the morning of July 29, 1967, off the coast of Vietnam.  Just before 11 am local time, an unguided Zuni rocket accidentally launched from the rearmost F-4 parked at the aft stern quarter into one of the A-4s lining the port quarter, which were each fully loaded with two 1,000-pound bombs and a centerline external fuel tank. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file photo)    

In 1967, a young rifleman in the United States Marine Corps named Jonnie Allen found himself as a member of the Marine Detachment (MARDET) onboard USS Forrestal (CVA 59). His duty, like the other Marines on board, would be to staff the ship’s brig, or jail. Allen, a veteran of the guided-missile cruiser USS Albany (CG 10), was not an enthusiastic “sea duty Marine.” Though he understood the reasons for and the necessity of it, he was always fearful of being trapped in a space so that watertight integrity could be maintained in order to save his ship and shipmates. He hated that he could have been trapped without any knowledge of what was going on around him. But, he was glad he was on a bigger ship since he considered being on a smaller ship in storm-tossed seas “no fun...rough…and scary."

About an hour after the catastrophic flight deck fire began, the destroyer Rupertus (DD 851) makes her approach in an effort to help combat the fire still consuming not only Forrestal's aft flight deck, but many of the spaces above the carrier's Hangar Bay Three. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Unlike other Marines, Allen’s Vietnam experience would be short, but no less dangerous. In June of 1967, Forrestal departed Naval Station Norfolk for Vietnam and reached “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin on July 25 to begin her rotation “on the line.” After 150 bombing sorties against targets in North Vietnam, Forrestal’s ordnance stores ran low, requiring an underway replenishment on July 28 with the ammunition ship USS Diamond Head (AE 19). Among the transferred ordnance were 16 AN-M65 1000-lb bombs, which were designed during World War II and manufactured in 1953. They were reportedly in such a corroded state that the Forrestal's commanding officer, Capt. John Beling, only accepted them as a last resort because they were needed the next day for missions and because of the complete lack of newer Mk 83 bombs available for issue in theater. He ordered the bombs stowed on deck to prevent the incineration of the ship if an accident occurred in the ship’s magazines.

On the afternoon of July 29, 1967, hose teams continue to douse the flight deck of USS Forrestal (CVA-59) with seawater after bringing the fire under control as the destroyer Rupertus (DD-851) in the background hoses down the port quarter alongside the carrier.  Many of the highly-trained members of the carrier's crash and salvage crew, including its leading chief, Aviation Boatswain's Mate Handling Chief Gerald Farrier, were killed only a minute and a half after the fire began by the initial bomb detonations.  As evinced by the various modes of dress and equipment worn by those manning the hoses, many of the Sailors who jumped in to replace the fallen damage control team members lacked the equipment and training to go up against a major Class Bravo (flammable liquid) fire. The lack of coordination between teams dispensing fire suppressing foam (designed to smother fires) and those fighting the fire with water caused the foam to be needlessly washed overboard, prolonging the disaster. (NHHC image)

Jonnie Allen began his morning on Saturday, July 29, at around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., as was normal. Like most days at sea, this one was shaping up to be routine and tedious. Allen was sitting in a chair around 11:00 a.m. when he heard a noise and felt the ship shudder and shake in a way that made clear that something awful happened, or as Allen put it, “it seemed the ship got hit hard for that ship to do that." What Allen experienced was the destruction of two fully loaded and fueled aircraft, the detonation of eight of the sixteen 1,000-lb bombs that had been loaded the day before, and the sympathetic explosion of a 500-lb bomb. The explosions instantly killed almost all of Forrestal’s flight deck firefighting team and tore large holes in the ship’s armored flight deck allowing burning fuel to pour into the interior of the ship.

This forensic photograph taken after Forrestal's return to Subic bay shows that the carrier's armored flight deck was no match the 1,000-lb bombs that detonated in the burning jet fuel, opening the way for thousands of gallons to pour into machinery and berthing spaces below. (HRNM file photo) 

Of Allen’s memories, there is one that has remained etched in his mind for the past fifty years: the eyes of an acquaintance. “Paul Newman had blue eyes, Frank Sinatra had blue eyes, I had never seen eyes like that,” remarked Allen in his description of this “good looking, young fella.” His acquaintance, a tall 18 or 19-year-old Sailor, was one of the clerks in the ship’s store, which was located below the flight deck aft. As Allen and his damage control party waded through knee and thigh-deep water, they would bump into floating corpses of fellow crew members who were in various states. Some of the victims they encountered had faces and bodies that were charred by the inferno, while others were missing limbs or had their bodies torn apart by the explosions. The men snaked through dark and mangled corridors that were “so hot, steamy, with water dripping and running all over the place” until they reached the ship’s store, which was completely unrecognizable. There Allen encountered the young clerk lying as if asleep, with no visible marks, no cuts, or burns. Instead of dying through smoke inhalation, burning to death or being blown apart by the force of the explosion, the man was killed simply by the concussion of the detonations. After seeing the man, the young Marine began to wonder, why him? Why did this young man die while he survived? Allen said that he normally went to the ship’s store around the time of the explosion and, in fact, was in it the day before, and by sheer luck he was not in it that day. 

This forensic photograph taken at Subic Bay in August 1967 shows one of the berthings on the 03 level below the flight deck where approximately 50 airmen and seamen lost their lives after working a long night of flight operations. (HRNM file photo)

The men of the Forrestal struggled to save their ship throughout that afternoon and through the night, and the many fires that erupted from the explosion were not declared out until 4:00 a.m. the next morning. The young man with blue eyes, along with 133 others, died on that solemn day. 161 more men were injured and twenty-one aircraft were destroyed outright or damaged enough to be declared total losses. Capt. Beling, offered these words that evening after personally directing damage control efforts for the previous ten hours:

Our heavenly Father, we see this day as one minute and yet a lifetime for all of us. We thank you for the courage of those who gave their lives in saving their shipmates today. We humbly ask You to grant them peace and to their loved ones the consolation and strength to bear their loss. Help us to renew the faith we have in You. We thank You for our own lives. May we remember You as You have remembered us today. From our hearts we turn to You now, knowing that You have been at our side in every minute of this day. Heavenly Father, help us to rebuild and re-man our ship, so that our brothers who died today may not have made a fruitless sacrifice.

A burned-out flight deck tractor is the only recognizable object within a hellish scene that only hours before had been a busy workplace for hundreds.  (HRNM file photo)

Indeed, the sacrifices made by the Sailors aboard Forrestal 50 years ago were not fruitless.  The disaster taught the Navy many hard lessons, but it was the impetus for a revolution in damage control training, technologies, as well as shipboard organization and regulations.  Without the changes made since then, the stories of other incidents rooted in accidents and attacks aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts, USS Stark, USS Cole, and, most recently, USS Fitzgerald might have been much more tragic than they were.  

Author’s note: This story was written, in part, from an oral history collected as part of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum’s ongoing project to record the first-hand experiences of local Navy and Marine Corps veterans of the Vietnam War. If you are a local Navy or Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and you would like to contribute, please contact our Deputy Director of Education, Laura Orr, at: LAURA.L.ORR@NAVY.MIL .

Lone Spad Pilot, NAS Oceana

This is Lieutanant Jim Reid walking the tarmac at N.A.S. Oceana in Virginia Beach, 1963.  Reid was a member of VA-85, a A-1H Skyraider/"Spad," ground attack squadron assigned to the carrier USS Forrestal (CV-59).  Jim is currently a docent at the museum and will be happy to tell you all about the story behind this picture and other stories.