The day was a typical one for the 5,000 officers and enlisted men of the attack aircraft carrier USS Forrestal as the huge, 80,000-ton ship cut a wake through the calm waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. It was as typical as it could be, that is, for men at war. And the men of Forrestal were definitely in combat. For the first time since their ship was commissioned in October 1955, they had been launching aircraft from her flight deck on strikes against an enemy whose coastline was only a few miles over the horizon.

The ship in which these men served was the first U.S. carrier built from the keel up with the angled deck that enables aircraft to be launched and recovered simultaneously. For four days, the planes of Attack Carrier Air Wing 17 had been launched on, and recovered from, about 150 missions against targets in North Vietnam. On the ship's four-acre flight deck, her crewmen went about the business at hand, the business of accomplishing the second launch of the fifth day in combat.

Overhead, the hot, tropical sun beat down from a clear sky.

It was just about 10:50 a.m. (local time), July 29, 1967.

              It is not a story about just a few individuals. Or ten… Or twenty… Or fifty. It is the story of hundreds of officers and enlisted men who were molded by disaster into a single cohesive force determined to accomplish one mission: Save their ship and their shipmates.

It is the story of the acts of heroism they performed-acts so commonplace, accomplished with such startling regularity, that it will be impossible to chronicle all of them. It will be impossible for a very simple reason:

All of them will never be known.

Lt. Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning one of the pilots due for launch with many others, he was seated in the cockpit of his fueled and armed Skyhawk; the plane was spotted way aft, to port. Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III said later he heard a "whooshy" sound then a "low-order explosion" in front of him. Suddenly, two A-4s ahead of his plane were engulfed in flaming jet fuel — JP-5 — spewed from them. A bomb dropped to the deck and rolled about six feet and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.

The awful conflagration, which was to leave 132 Forrestal crewmen dead, 62 more injured and two missing and presumed dead, had begun.

As the searing flames, fed by the spreading JP-5, spread aft and began to eat at the aircraft spotted around the deck, Lt. Cmdr. Browning escaped from his plane. He ducked under the tails of two Skyhawks spotted alongside his and ran up the flight deck toward the island area. Twice, explosions knocked him off balance. But he made it.

The fire soon enveloped all the aircraft in its wake. It spread to the fantail, to decks below. Bombs and ammunition were touched off in the midst of early fire-fighting efforts. Black, acrid smoke boiled into the sky. Other ships on Yankee Station sped to the aid of the stricken carrier.

As the fuel-fed fire licked at planes, ammunition and bombs, the heroes of Forrestal rushed to avert a total disaster; some died in the process. A chief petty officer, armed only with a small fire extinguisher, ran toward the bomb that had dropped to the flight deck. He was killed when it exploded as were members of fire-fighting teams trying to wrestle fire hoses into position. Shrapnel from the explosion was thrown a reported 400 feet.

"I saw a dozen people running . . into the fire, just before the bomb cooked off," Lt. Cmdr. Browning was quoted as saying later. He called very one of them "a hero of the first magnitude."

That was only the beginning.

"There was a horrendous explosion that shook 'Angel Two Zero.' It seemed as if the whole stern of the Forrestal had erupted. Suddenly there were rafts, fuel tanks, oxygen tanks, trop tanks and debris of every description floating in the water below."

Operational and Building Data

Ordered as a "Large Aircraft Carrier", hull number CVB-59. Contract awarded to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Newport News, Va., 12 Jul 1951. Laid down 14 Jul 1952. Reclassified as an "Attack Aircraft Carrier" (CVA-59), 1 Oct 1952. Launched 11 Dec 1954 and commissioned 1 Oct 1955.

Reclassified as a "Multi-purpose Aircraft Carrier" (CV-59), 30 Jun 1975. Modernized at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard Jan 1983-May 1985 under SLEP (Service Life Extension Program).

Reclassified as a Training Carrier and re-designated AVT-59, Feb 1992; Forrestal arrived in Philadelphia 14 Sep 1992 to begin a 14-month complex overhaul prior to assuming the duties as training carrier.

In early 1993, however, it was decided to decommission Forrestal and leave the Navy without a dedicated training carrier. Decommissioned and stricken from the Navy List, 11 Sep 1993.

Status: Stricken, to be disposed of (Maintenance Category X).
Berth: NAVSTA Newport, R.I.
Planned disposition: Artificial Fishing Reef.

"...Graven Not So Much On Stone

As In The Hearts Of Men."

For more information about this ship, see:

• Commanding Officers of USS Forrestal (CVA/CV/AVT-59)
• Memorabilia
• The Forrestal Fire — Ship's Logs

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It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center .

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite , LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence, recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the hair on my neck stood up. 'It had a big meaning to it for all of us,' he said. 'They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back.'

The ship's motto?

 'Never Forget'