- Wars, Conflicts, and Operations
- American Revolution
- War of 1812
- Civil War
- Spanish-American War
- World War I
- World War II
- Korean War
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- CIA Documents
- The NSA Collection (Documents from 1960-1963, 1969)
- State Dept. Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963, Volume XI: Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath
- JFK Library
- Navy Ships and Units Participating in the Crisis
- Enterprise (CVAN 65)
- Presidential Recordings Project at Miller Center, University of Virginia
- The Cuban Missile Crisis (YouTube)
- Admiral George W. Anderson
- Admiral Robert Dennison
- Admiral Alfred G. Ward
- Excerpt from Steven L. Rearden, Council of War: A History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1942-1991 (Washington: NDU Press, 2012), pages 224-243
- Bibliography
- Chronology: Excerpts from United States Naval Aviation 1910-2010 manuscript
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Vietnam War
- Operation Allied Force
- September 11th Terrorist Attack
- Middle East Engagements
- POW MIA
- Pirate Interdiction and the U.S. Navy
- Campaign Against the West Indian Pirates
- The Bashaw of Tripoli
- Act to Protect Commerce
- Operations Against West Indian Pirates
- Navy and Marines vs. Piracy, Africa
- Suppression of Piracy on Johanna Island
- Incidental Anti-Piracy Operations, Gulf of Siam
- Fish, Family, and Profit: Piracy and the Horn of Africa
- Piracy and Horn of Africa Operations
- Rescue of Iranian Fishing Vessel from Pirates
- USS Nicholas Captures Suspected Pirates
- Combined Maritime Forces Flagship Intercepts Somali Pirates
- More Suspected Pirates Apprehended in the Gulf of Aden
- Commemorations Toolkits
- Heritage
- Uniforms
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1776-1783
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1797
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1802
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1812-1815
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1815
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1830-1841
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1841
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1852
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1852-1855
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1862-1863
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1864
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1898
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1900
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1905-1913
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1917-1918
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1918-1919
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1922-1931
- Uniforms of the U.S Navy 1941
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1942-1943
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1943-1944
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1951-1952
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1961
- Uniforms of the U.S. Navy 1967
- Customs and Traditions
- Sailors' Tattoos
- Goats and the U.S. Navy
- Navy Athletics
- The Sailor’s Creed
- The Ship’s Bell
- Striking the Flag
- Unofficial Navy Certificates
- Precedence of Forces in Parades
- Passing Honors, National Anniversaries, and Solemnities
- Rocks and Shoals: Articles for the Government of the U.S. Navy
- Plank Owners
- Ship Naming
- Twenty-One Gun Salute
- Change of Command
- The Navy Hymn
- Commissioning Pennant
- Ship Launching and Commissioning
- Burial at Sea
- Crossing the Line
- Banners
- Life Aboard
- Decorations and Awards
- Speak Like a Sailor
- Famous Navy Quotations
- Origins of the Navy
- U.S. Navy History Lessons Learned
- Uniforms
- Communities
- Disasters and Phenomena
- Tragedy of USS Memphis
- Sinking of USS Indianapolis
- The Catastrophic Fire On Board USS Forrestal
- Conestoga
- Atlantis: The Legendary Island
- Bermuda Triangle: Selected Bibliography
- Flight 19
- Amelia Earhart
- Philadelphia Experiment
- U-2s, UFOs, and Operation Blue Book
- Destruction of USS Maine
- Exercise Tiger: Oral History
- Port Chicago, CA, Explosion
- Weather-Related Incidents
- The Sullivan Brothers and the Assignment of Family Members
- Organization and Administration
- Historical Leadership
- Officers List
- Office of the Secretary of the Navy
- Fleet Commanders
- District Commanders
- Bureaus
- Officers of the Continental and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps 1775-1900
- Naval Officers of the War of 1812
- Individuals Assigned to Administrative History Project
- Commander in Chief US Allied Forces Southern Europe
- Chief of Chaplains
- Chief of Naval Education and Training
- Commander in Chief US Naval Forces Europe
- Director of Naval Reserve
- Gray Eagles
- Office of Information
- Directors of Naval Intelligence
- Japan, Commander US Naval Forces
- Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs)
- Naval Electronic Systems Command Headquarters
- Office of Naval Material
- Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research Development and Acquisition)
- Commander Seventh Fleet
- Vice Chief of Naval Operations
- Ranks
- Regulations and Policy
- Personnel
- Service and Medical Records
- U.S. Navy Installations
- Washington Navy Yard, District of Columbia
- Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia
- Naval Submarine Base New London, Connecticut
- Naval Station Mayport, Florida
- Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida
- Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois
- Naval Base San Diego, California
- Naval Base Kitsap, Washington
- Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
- U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan
- Naval Support Activity Bahrain
- Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy
- Historical Leadership
- Diversity
- Exploration and Innovation
- Underwater Exploration
- Polar Exploration
- Operation High Jump
- Art Exhibit: Operation Deep Freeze I (1955-56)
- Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary
- Matthew Henson, U.S. Navy Medal of Merit
- Alcona
- Arneb
- Atule
- Caiman
- Merrick
- Porpoise II
- USS Richard E. Byrd
- Roosevelt
- Vincennes I
- Whitewood
- USS Wilkes
- The Jeannette Expedition in Arctic Waters as Described in Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Navy, 1880-1884
- Naval Aviation News - Overview of Naval Aviation in the Antarctic pg 20-25
- Naval Aviation News - Antarctic Development Squadron (VXE) 6 pg 16-19
- Naval Aviation News - Operation Deep Freeze Photos - Antarctic support pg 22-23
- Naval Aviation News - South Pole Approach pg 33
- Submarine Force Museum
- Electricity and USS Trenton
- Atmospheric Nuclear Testing: A Select Bibliography
- The World Cruise of the Great White Fleet
- The Voyage of a Lifetime
- The Ships of the Great White Fleet
- Great White Fleet Gallery
- Beginning of the Cruise
- Fleet Leadership
- Crossing the Equator
- World Cruise Experience
- At Sea
- Puerto Rico-South America-Mexico
- U.S. West Coast
- Hawaii-Australia-New Zealand
- Japan and China
- Philippines and Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
- Suez Canal-Egypt-Turkey
- Mediterranean
- End of the Cruise
- Memorabilia
- Navy Role in Space Exploration
- Notable People
- Presidents
- Chiefs of Naval Operations
- The Office
- Admiral William S. Benson
- Admiral Robert E. Coontz
- Admiral Edward W. Eberle
- Admiral Charles F. Hughes
- Admiral William V. Pratt
- Admiral William H. Standley
- Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy
- Admiral Harold R. Stark
- Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King
- Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
- Admiral Louis E. Denfeld
- Admiral Forrest P. Sherman
- Admiral William M. Fechteler
- Admiral Robert B. Carney
- Admiral Arleigh A. Burke
- Admiral George W. Anderson Jr.
- Admiral David L. McDonald
- Admiral Thomas H. Moorer
- Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.
- Admiral James L. Holloway III
- Admiral Thomas B. Hayward
- Admiral James D. Watkins
- Admiral Carlisle A. H. Trost
- Admiral Frank B. Kelso II
- Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda
- Admiral Jay L. Johnson
- Admiral Vernon E. Clark
- Admiral Michael G. Mullen
- Admiral Gary Roughead
- Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert
- Admiral John M. Richardson
- Master Chief Petty Officers of the Navy
- MCPON Delbert D. Black
- MCPON John D. Whittet
- MCPON Robert J. Walker
- MCPON Thomas S. Crow
- MCPON Billy C. Sanders
- MCPON William H. Plackett
- MCPON Duane R. Bushey
- MCPON John Hagan
- MCPON James L. Herdt
- MCPON Terry D. Scott
- MCPON Joe R. Campa Jr.
- MCPON Rick D. West
- MCPON Michael D. Stevens
- MCPON Steven S. Giordano
- MCPON Official Photographs
- Trailblazers
- Historical Figures
- Astronauts: Chronology of Space Missions
- Secretaries of the Navy
- Benjamin Stoddert (1798 - 1801)
- Robert Smith (1801 - 1809)
- Paul Hamilton (1809 - 1812)
- William Jones (1813 - 1814)
- Benjamin W. Crowninshield (1815 - 1818)
- Smith Thompson (1819 - 1823)
- Samuel Southard (1823 - 1829)
- John Branch, Jr. (1829 - 1831)
- Levi Woodbury (1831 - 1834)
- Mahlon Dickerson (1834 - 1838)
- James K. Paulding (1838 - 1841)
- George Edmund Badger (1841)
- Abel P. Upshur (1841 - 1843)
- David Henshaw (1843 - 1844)
- Thomas W. Gilmer (1844)
- John Y. Mason (1844-1845) (1846-1849)
- George Bancroft (1845 - 1846)
- William B. Preston (1849 - 1850)
- William A. Graham (1850 - 1852)
- John P. Kennedy (1852 - 1853)
- James C. Dobbin (1853 - 1857)
- Isaac Toucey (1857 - 1861)
- Gideon Welles (1861 - 1869)
- Adolph Edward Borie (1869)
- George M. Robeson (1869 - 1877)
- Richard W. Thompson (1877 - 1880)
- Nathan Goff, Jr. (1881)
- William Henry Hunt (1881 - 1882)
- William Eaton Chandler (1882 - 1885)
- William C. Whitney (1885 - 1889)
- Benjamin F. Tracy (1889 - 1893)
- Hilary A. Herbert (1893 - 1897)
- John D. Long (1897 - 1902)
- William H. Moody (1902 - 1904)
- Paul Morton (1904 - 1905)
- Charles J. Bonaparte (1905 - 1906)
- Victor H. Metcalf (1906 - 1908)
- Truman H. Newberry (1908 - 1909)
- George von L. Meyer (1909 - 1913)
- Josephus Daniels (1913 - 1921)
- Edwin Denby (1921 - 1924)
- Charles F. Adams, III (1929 - 1933)
- Claude A. Swanson (1933 - 1939)
- Charles Edison (1940)
- William Franklin Knox (1940 - 1944)
- James Forrestal (1944 - 1947)
- John Lawrence Sullivan (1947 - 1949)
- Francis P. Matthews (1949 - 1951)
- Dan A. Kimball (1951 - 1953)
- Robert B. Anderson (1953 - 1954)
- Charles S. Thomas (1954 - 1957)
- Thomas S. Gates (1957 - 1959)
- William Birrell Franke (1959 - 1961)
- John Bowden Connally, Jr. (1961)
- Fred Korth (1962 - 1963)
- Paul B. Fay (acting) (1963)
- Paul Henry Nitze (1963 - 1967)
- Charles Fitz Baird (acting) (1967)
- Paul R. Ignatius (1967 - 1969)
- John Hubbard Chafee (1969 - 1972)
- John William Warner (1972 - 1974)
- J. William Middendorf (1974 - 1977)
- William Graham Claytor, Jr. (1977 - 1979)
- Edward Hidalgo (1979 - 1981)
- John Lehman (1981 - 1987)
- James H. Webb (1987 - 1988)
- William L. Ball (1988 - 1989)
- Henry L. Garrett III (1989 - 1992)
- Daniel Howard (acting) (1992)
- Sean Charles O'Keefe (1992 - 1993)
- ADM Frank B. Kelso, II (acting) (1993)
- John Howard Dalton (1993 - 1998)
- Richard Jeffrey Danzig (1998 - 2001)
- Robert B. Pirie, Jr. (acting) (2001)
- Gordon R. England (2001-2003) (2003-2005)
- Susan M. Livingstone (acting) (2003)
- Hansford T. Johnson (acting) (2003)
- Donald Charles Winter (2006 - 2009)
- Raymond Edwin Mabus, Jr. (2009 - 2017)
- Sean G. J. Stackley (acting) (2017)
- Richard V. Spencer (2017 - present)
- Profiles in Duty
- Medal of Honor Recipients
- Notable Ships
- Historical Summary
- Vietnam Conflict 1962-1975
- Image (gif, jpg, tiff)
USN 1124786. Forrestal (CVA-59) crewmen are assisted by those from Rupertus (DD-851) in fighting the fires raging aboard Forrestal, while a helicopter ferries firefighting supplies to the burning ship. Download image.
The Catastrophic Fire On Board USS Forrestal (CVA-59)
On 29 July 1967, USS Forrestal (CVA/CV-59) suffered a catastrophic fire during flight operations while on Yankee Station off the coast of Vietnam. Wracked by eight high-order explosions of thin-shelled Korean War–vintage bombs and a number of smaller weapons explosions, the world’s first supercarrier was mere minutes away from the bottom of the Gulf of Tonkin. In its wake, the fire claimed 134 Sailors and Airmen, and seriously injured or burned another 161. Of those who died, 50 died where they slept. Many more were wounded but did not report their injuries because of the severity of those of their shipmates.
Forrestal was the first Atlantic Fleet carrier on Yankee Station, and she had been there only five days. As the ship prepared for its second strike of the day, at 1050, everything changed. The Navy in its definitive report on the event—Manual of the Judge Advocate General Basic Final Investigative Report Concerning the Fire on Board the USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59)—concluded that a stray electrical signal ignited the motor of a Zuni rocket carried by an F-4B Phantom II on the starboard quarter and shot across the deck, striking the external fuel tank of a fully armed A-4E Skyhawk on the port. At least one of the Skyhawk’s M-65 1,000-lb. bombs fell to the deck, cracked open, and was burning with a white-hot ferocity.
The carrier’s fire crew responded immediately. Fifty-four seconds after the initiation of the fire, Chief Gerald W. Farrier, head of the firefighting team, attacked the cracked and furiously burning bomb with a hand-held extinguisher. Twenty seconds later the hose crew arrived and fought the periphery of the fire. At slightly more than 90 seconds into the fire, the bomb exploded. Nine seconds later a second 1,000-pounder exploded with even more ferocity, hurling debris nearly 1,000 feet away at the bow.
The explosions of the large, old weapons blew holes in the armored flight deck above spaces primarily set aside for crew berthing. Flaming and unburned fuel, water, and foam cascaded down into the compartments. Battling the fires below deck was more difficult than that topside with the confined spaces, little light, thick black smoke, and toxic fumes. Although the fire on the flight deck was controlled within an hour, fires below deck raged until 0400 the next morning.
Twenty-one aircraft were destroyed and another 40 damaged of the 73 on board at the start of the fire.
Although the investigation report cited errors of safety checks on the Zuni rocket, it concluded that no one on board was directly responsible for the fire and subsequent explosions, and recommended that no disciplinary or administrative action be taken against any persons attached to the ship or its air wing.
Forrestal received emergency repairs over eight days at Subic Bay, The Philippines, before sailing for complete repair at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. She went on to serve until 11 September 1993 when she was decommissioned after 21 deployments. She never made another Vietnam cruise.
This information was extracted from the Manual of the Judge Advocate General Basic Final Investigative Report Concerning the Fire on Board the USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59), portions of which are available from the U.S. Navy JAG online library.
USN 1124794. USS Forrestal (CVA-59). Crew members fight a series of fires and explosions on the carrier's after flight deck, in the Gulf of Tonkin, 29 July 1967. The conflagration took place as heavily-armed and fueled aircraft were being prepared for combat missions over North Vietnam. Official U.S. Navy Photograph. Download image.
Ship History 1955-1993
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for Forrestal. Includes biographical information on the ship’s namesake, Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, and a chronology of the ship’s service.
The Forrestal Fire
Article from Naval Aviation News, October 1967, compiled and edited by Senior Chief Journalist John D. Burlage. (Download PDF of October 1967 issue [5 MB].)
How the 1967 Fire on USS Forrestal Improved Future U.S. Navy Damage Control Readiness A Sextant blog post by Hank Stewart, Commander, USN (Retired), Assistant Professor of Engineering, Maine Maritime Academy.
USS Forrestal—Trial by Fire
The Sextant blog post by Chief Damage Controlman (SW/AW) Teddy Yates discussing the tragedy and the impact of the fire.
The Impact of the USS Forrestal’'s 1967 Fire (PDF, 305 KB)
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College master’s thesis by Lieutenant Commander Henry P. Stewart. The opinions and conclusions expressed therein are those of the student author and do not necessarily represent the view of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency.
Trial by Fire
A motivational film for Navy personnel on the prevention of fire and for learning firefighting damage control measures.
All Hands Update: Remembering the 1967 USS Forrestal Fire
Video providing overview of the event that changed how the Navy trains for firefighting and response.
Remembering Forrestal
Video from 45th annual commemoration ceremony of the fire. Includes historic imagery and remarks from former Forrestal crew member.
National Naval Aviation Museum Ensures USS Forrestal “Trial by Fire” Accident is Forever Remembered
The National Naval Aviation Museum collection also includes the Forrestal Fire exhibit and the Forrestal Plan of the Day from 30 July 1967, the day after the fire.
NH 97657-KN. USS Forrestal (CV-59). USS Forrestal (CV-59) Underway in 1987, with three F-14s and an A-6 on her catapults. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Download image.
Footnotes
- Accessibility/Section 508 |
- Employee Login |
- FOIA |
- NHHC IG |
- Privacy |
- Webmaster |
- Navy.mil |
- Navy Recruiting |
- Careers |
- USA.gov |
- USA Jobs
- No Fear Act |
- Site Map |
- This is an official U.S. Navy web site