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Title: John Mccain Exposed By Vietnam Vets And Pows
Source:
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URL Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hr37eE0nO8&feature=youtu.be
Published: Jul 18, 2015
Author: iwsou
Post Date: 2015-07-18 23:33:56 by out damned spot
Keywords: McCain, Pows, vets
Views: 6094
Comments: 16
Poster Comment: John McCain betrayed his fellow POWs.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#2. To: out damned spot (#0)
He tore up an air craft carrier too. Pilots used to have a spirited joke where they injected fuel into their engines and shot fire out the back. McCain pulled it and set fire to the planes and pilots waiting for takeoff in back of him producing enormous damage. Had he not been a admiral's kid, he would have been sentenced to time in barbed wire village. As it was, he was merely transferred to another carrier.
There are emails floating around that the Forrestal fire started when McCain deliberately 'wet-started' his A-4E Skyhawk to shake up the guy in the F-4 Phantom behind his A-4. 'Wet-starts', done either deliberately (the starter motor switch allowed kerosene to pool in the engine and give a wet start) or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft. Here is one account of the incident: /snip/ At about 10:50 (local time) on 29 July, while preparations for the second strike of the day were being made, an unguided 5.0 in (127.0 mm) Mk-32 "Zuni" rocket, one of four contained in an LAU-10 underwing rocket pod mounted on an F- 4B Phantom II (believed to be aircraft No. 110 from VF-11, accidentally fired due to an electrical power surge during the switch from external to internal power. The surge, and a missing rocket safety pin, which would have prevented the fail surge, as well as a decision to plug in the "pigtail" system early to increase the number of takeoffs from the carrier, allowed the rocket to launch. (see below). The rocket flew across the flight deck, striking a wing-mounted external fuel tank on an A-4E Skyhawk awaiting launch, aircraft No. 405 fromVA-46, piloted by Lieutenant Commander Fred D. White. The Zuni rocket's warhead safety mechanism prevented it from detonating, but the impact tore the tank off the wing and ignited the resulting spray of escaping JP-5 fuel, causing an instantaneous conflagration. Within seconds, other external fuel tanks on White's aircraft overheated and ruptured, releasing more jet fuel to feed the flames, which began spreading along the flight deck. The impact of the rocket had also dislodged two of the 1000-lb AN-M65 bombs, which fell to the deck, and lay in the pool of burning fuel between White's aircraft and that of Lieutenant Commander John McCain. Damage Control Team No. 8 swung into action immediately, and Chief Gerald Farrier, recognizing the risk, and without the benefit of protective clothing, immediately smothered the bombs with a PKP fire extinguisher in an effort to knock down the fuel fire long enough to allow the pilots to escape. The pilots, still strapped into their aircraft, were immediately aware that a disaster was unfolding, but only some were able to escape in time. McCain, pilot of A-4 Skyhawk side No. 416, next to White's, was among the first to notice the flames, and escaped by scrambling down the nose of his A-4 and jumping off the refueling probe shortly before the explosions began. /snip/ Another account of the incident: /snip/ The Forrestal Disaster, July 29, 1967 At the time of this incident Lt. Cdr. McCain already had flown several bombing missions over North Vietnam from the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. As he was in his A-4 Skyhawk, loaded with two, 1,000-pound bombs and waiting on the carrier deck for his turn to launch, a Zuni missile accidentally fired from another aircraft, swooshed across the carrier deck and struck either McCain's plane or one next to it. That triggered a fire and a series of bomb and missile explosions that killed 134 sailors. McCain himself barely escaped alive. He quickly leaped from his plane into the pool of burning jet fuel that immediately surrounded him. About 90 seconds later he was blown 15 feet back when the first bomb “cooked off” and exploded, killing several nearby firefighters. James M. Caiella has written a scholarly article about the disaster, which appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of Foundation magazine, a publication of the National Naval Aviation Museum, located in Pensacola, Fla. Caiella, who is now associate editor of Proceedings and Naval History magazines, published by the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, generously shared with us copies of some key documents which he obtained from the Navy under the Freedom of Information Act. They include a typed transcript of the sworn testimony that McCain gave less than two weeks after the disaster, on Aug. 5, 1967, and also a written statement he submitted prior to his testimony, describing the first moments of the disaster: McCain, 1967 statement: I heard a loud explosion and immediate fire all around the airplane . . . Smoke and flame were around the cockpit so I unstrapped . . . and unplugged my oxygen hose, keeping my visor down. I looked to the aft of the airplane and saw nothing but flame and I could see burning fuel in front and around the airplane but it did not look too bad to the forward. I opened the canopy and walked out on the refueling probe and jumped from the end of it, landing just on the edge of the fire and rolled clear. McCain said that he rushed to help another pilot who had gotten out of his plane and had jumped into the flames and rolled clear, but was still on fire. That first bomb explosion was 90 seconds into the fire. Soon it ignited other bombs and other missiles. Later, on the hangar deck below the main flight deck, McCain said he and another officer, along with “a lot of fine enlisted men,” pushed several bomb carts overboard to keep them away from flaming fuel that was curling down from above. He later “noticed that I had a hole below my left knee with some metal in it, and two small shrapnel cuts in my thigh and shoulder.” The Forrestal was badly damaged and put out of action for two years. A little more than a month after the disaster, McCain was flying missions from another carrier, the USS Oriskany. /snip/
#6. To: Gatlin (#5)
While it is fun and fitting to despise McStain politically, I think blaming him for Forrestal is kinda phony. I've never seen credible proof that he was doing anything in his plane while awaiting his launch. After Stain opposed doing anything more to account for MIA/POWs back in the early Nineties, this Forrestal incident got dragged out to try to blame him for it. Just because we hate him as a slimy pol doesn't mean he was the cause of a bad accident on a carrier.
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#5. To: rlk, out damned spot (#2)
(Edited)
He tore up an air craft carrier too. Pilots used to have a spirited joke where they injected fuel into their engines and shot fire out the back. McCain pulled it and set fire to the planes and pilots waiting for takeoff in back of him producing enormous damage. Had he not been a admiral's kid, he would have been sentenced to time in barbed wire village. As it was, he was merely transferred to another carrier.
The 1967 USS Forrestal fire was a devastating fire and series of chain-reaction explosions on 29 July 1967, that killed 134 sailors and injured 161 on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal(CVA-59), after an electrical anomaly discharged a Zuni rocket on the flight deck. Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War at the time, and the damage exceeded US$72 million (equivalent to $509 million today) not including the damage to aircraft. Future United States Senator John McCain was among the survivors.
A drawing of the stern of Forrestal
showing the spotting of aircraft at the
time. Likely source of the Zuni was F-4
No. 110. White's and McCain's aircraft
(A-4s No. 405 and 416, respectively)
are in the right hand circle.
Replies to Comment # 5. There are emails floating around that the Forrestal fire started when McCain deliberately 'wet-started' his A-4E Skyhawk to shake up the guy in the F-4 Phantom behind his A-4. 'Wet-starts', done either deliberately (the starter motor switch allowed kerosene to pool in the engine and give a wet start) or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
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