Forrestal (CVA 59) - Naval Cruise Book

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JAMt r- 4 s M % r ' ill Beacon, New York. S! duation from high school, he aLicndcd Dartn.utJin College and Princeton Univer- sity. Forresia! worked for short periods of time as a finan- cial reporter and a tobacco salesman. During 1915, he entered the hanking business in New York City. At the outbreak of World War I, Forrestal enlisted in the United States Navy. He was later commissioned as a Naval Aviator and served both in this country and abroad. He was discharged in 1919 and re-entered the banking business. In June, 1940. he accepted a post as Administrative Assistant to President Roosevelt, serving as liaison man for the President in the National Defense Program. In August 1940, he was appointed to the newly created of- fice of Under Secretary of the Navy. Forrestal was appointed Secretary of the Navy in May 1944. He took the oath of office as the country ' s first Secretary of Defense in September 1947. He re- signed in 1949 and entered the hospital in . ' pril of the same year. He died on May 22, 1949. A bronze bust of Forrestal at the hall entrance to the Pentagon bears the following inscription: This memorial to James Forrestal. as a spontane- ous tribute to his lasting accomplishments in providing national security and his selfless devotion to duty, was erected by thousands of his friends and co-workers of all ranks and stations. 1 iNAVY w ' .EOL FIRST TRAP: Cmdr. Ralph L. Werner makes the first arrested landing on Jan- uary 3, 1956 in an FJ-3 Fury fighter. t tm.

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■ - ' ♦Vri 1 I TECH The world ' s first supercarrier begins shape in the Newport News Shipbuilding yards. FORRSTAL was the first post- World War II air- craft carrier and boasted many new high tech im- provements over her predecessors. The new carrier was larger and more powerful than anything ever constructed. FORRESTAL was specifically de- signed to handle jet aircraft. Catapults which would launch the aircraft would be powered by steam in- stead of hydraulics. An angled-flight deck was also a new design feature that would allow the ship to launch and recover aircraft at the same time.

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i A RECORD LANDING It began as a wild idea in Patuxent River, Maryland at the %aval Air Test Center. A year later, it became a reality. The as- signment: Determine the feasibility of operating a C-130 ' Hercules ' aircraft aboard a FORRESTAL-class aircraft carri- i USS FORRESTAL (CV-59) became the testing platform n ' or the largest aircraft to ever land on the (light deck of a carri The C-1 30 that was chosen for the exercise was on loan from LS. Marine Corps. To land on board the ship, modifications h ? to be made with the plane to adapt it to the carrier environment. e-fueling pods on the wings were removed, an improved braking ivstem was installed and nose landing gear needed adjustments to handle the landing. Onboard FORRESTAL, ship flight deck configurations ere altered. Arresting cables were removed from the after p; if the ship; the C- 1 30 would not rely on a tailhook to land. A( ' tionally, a white center-line was painted from the ramp to the to assist the pilots in landing the mammoth airplane. The landing signal officer blast shield was also lowered to ensure wing tip clearance. p Three separate trials began on October 30, 1 964 just 22 days after the Navy received the C-130 from the Marines. Take-offs and landings were tested with airplane gross weights ranging from 88,000 pounds to 1 2 1 ,000 pounds. Although FORRESTAL C-130 tests were successful, a C- 1 30 never landed aboard another carrier again preserving FORRESTAL ' s claim as having the irgest aircraft ever to land on a carrier flight deck. ii I HERCULES: ' eck of USS FORRESTAL. ' 4 ' The aircraft, on loan from the U.S. Marines, is the largest ever to land on a carrier. FIRE ON THE FLIGHTDECK! V In hangar bay No. 1 , a bronze plaque reads: To the officers and ™n of USS FORRESTAL, living and dead, who on July 29, 1967, proved through their comradeship and heroism that uncommon valor was their common virtue. FORRESTAL had arrived on Yankee Station off Vietnam only four days earlier, following a six-week transit from her homeport of Nor- folk. That morning, the first strike had launched and the second strike was preparing to launch at 1 1 a.m. At 10:52, a Zuni rocket was accident- ly fired and sent shooting into a drop fuel tank on a A-4E Skyhawk. Within seconds, the after portion of the flight deck was engulfed in flames. High winds across the deck spread the fire quickly to other air- craft, most loaded with ordnance. Within two minutes of the initial fire, the explosions from 500,750 and 1000 pound bombs ripped gaping cra- ters in the flight deck. The largest hole was over 20 feet in diameter. Almost 50 night crew personnel sleeping one deck below were killed instantly. Twenty men were blown overboar d by the forces of the explo- sions. Only 16 would be recovered by nearby destroyers. Although the fire on the flight deck was extinguished within two hours, the residual fires below deck would burn on for 17 hours more until they could be contained. Twenty-one aircraft were destroyed and total damage was estimat- ed at $72 million. The final toll: 134 dead, 164 injured. This was the single biggest loss of Navy personnel during the Vietnam War and the worst U.S. Naval disaster since World War II.