Help Us Find This Sailor
On July 29, 1967 a devastating fire occurred aboard the USS Forrestal claiming the lives of 134 sailors and Marines, and injuring 161 others. At 10:50 a.m., during preparations for the second strike of the day, an unguided “Zuni” rocket was accidentally fired due to an electrical power surge.
The rocket flew across the flight deck, striking a wing-mounted external fuel tank on a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk waiting to launch. The warhead’s safety mechanism prevented it from detonating, but the impact tore the tank off the wing and ignited the spray of escaping fuel. Instantaneously, an out-of-control fire erupted aboard the flight deck of the USS Forrestal. Other external fuel tanks overheated and ruptured, releasing more jet fuel to feed the flames that continued to spread, and leaving pilots in their aircraft with the options of being incinerated in their cockpits or running through the flames to escape.
One and a half minutes after the fire began a “Comp. B” bomb, overheated by the fire, exploded destroying more aircraft and spraying the deck and sailors with shrapnel and burning jet fuel – in turn causing more bombs to detonate and spilling more fuel on the deck. In all, nine bomb explosions occurred aboard the USS Forrestal flight deck that day.
The 134 crew members that died in the USS Forrestal fire are listed on panel 24E of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Last year we told you that we still needed three photos of those killed that day to be displayed in the Eduction Center at The Wall. Since then, we collected two more and now only need one. Help us find the photo of John Francis Snow of Rouse Port, NY so that his face will be visible next to his fellow shipmates when displayed in the Education Center.
Thank You all, thank you, thank you……………… I am so grateful that our Vietnam Veterans, military, soldiers, MIA and POW’s are finally coming to the frontlines as well as they should have been……. painful time for all….. lost so many and saw too many loved ones either not come home or eventually fade away once on US soil, unacknowledged, uncertain, thank you …… love, love, carolynn louise black…….
To Put A Face With A Name
Posted for: JOHN FRANCIS SNOW:
John, thanks to Ken Killmeyer, Historian, finally we were able to obtain your photo that will now be displayed at the Education Center each year on your birthday when the Center is complete. Yours was the last photo to be obtained of the 134 casualties of the disaster that occurred on the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967. It brings me great joy to have been able to obtain and upload this photo and remembrance so that you will not be the only one without a photo. God bless you John for who you were and the sacrifice you made for your country. We live in freedom today thanks to heroes like you. You are truly one of God’s special angels and join the love of my life who also sacrificed his life in 1967.
Posted by: Carol (Cipriani) Haberchak
Email: haberchak1311@comcast.net
Relationship:
Sunday, October 23, 2011
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Thanks Geri. I just double checked and we do have that post from Carol on the Virtual Wall, the photo isn’t on his page anywhere. I’ll keep looking and see if we have it somewhere else and if so, make sure it gets to his page on the Virtual Wall.