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(More customer reviews)When the USS _Forrestal_ was put into service in 1955, she was the biggest aircraft carrier in the world, able to carry twice as much fuel and weapons as the carriers that had preceded her, and the first one designed specifically for launching jet aircraft. When reassigned in 1967 to join ships already supporting the war in Vietnam, she had never seen a day of combat. Captain John Beling had assumed command of the ship the year before, an assignment that was the pinnacle for any naval aviator. For four days the _Forrestal_ joined in adding to the bombing missions over Vietnam. And then a horrible accident happened, which is now getting its first sufficient book length description. _Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It_ (William Morrow) by Gregory A. Freeman, a clear, three-part account of a disastrous fire at sea: what preceded it, the fire itself, and the aftermath. It is a dramatic and riveting account which at some points may have you in tears.
Freeman carefully explains how safety measures were overridden, causing a rocket from one on-deck fighter to be fired into another. More importantly, he shows how the Navy was using long-outdated bombs left over from before WWII in order to make it seem as if the administration had enough bombs to fight the Vietnam War. Not only were the bombs outdated, but they became touchy and more unsafe as the years passed. Beling knew of the problem, and insisted that he needed better bombs; but he had a job to do, and the old ones were the only ones he was going to get to do it. Newer bombs could stand a lot of heat, and the old ones could not. Much sooner than anyone expected, one of the bombs blew up, a thousand pounds of explosive impacting at zero range. Of the 35 crewmembers nearby, 27 were killed instantly or got fatal injuries, and among this number were the expert firefighting team. It was merely the start of the larger disaster, for eight more of the old bombs were to go off. Most of the crew below decks thought that enemy bombers had found the _Forrestal_ and were attacking.
There are horrific and at times inspiring stories are told here with enormous sympathy for men pushed beyond all limits. Slowly the large fire was brought under control, although for days afterwards there might be rekindled fires to fight. The rear of the ship was so torn up that access could only come by lowering sailors into the compartments, and bodies were still being found weeks after the fire. The ship limped home to Norfolk. Freeman explains the aftermath of the disaster and the ruination of Beling's career, but more importantly explains how it affected the many other veterans he interviewed. The voluminous reports on the disaster neglected the importance of the faulty bombs but placed most of the blame on the firefighting deficiencies of the crew, a point of view emphasized in the firefighting training all sailors now get. This has been an unfair burden surviving crewmembers have had to bear, but Freeman has found that they are still proud of their service and of their ship, which was decommissioned in 1993, having seen a total of those four days in combat during her entire time at sea. The veterans want to turn her into a museum. The 134 men who died have their names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and those whose bodies were never recovered have a monument near the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington. Now, too, they have an unforgettable volume that in recounting the horrors and the heroism of the incident will be among their most lasting and fitting monuments.
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