Conservative Treehouse:
Initial photographic appearances showed the port-side bow anchor of the ACX Crystal impaled a portion of the USS Fitzgerald near starboard side amidship below her bridge. Later reporting confirmed the Fitzgerald was ruptured above and below the waterline by the much larger cargo vessel. Seven sailors were missing.
The latest update from the 7th Fleet is terrible. Several bodies, perhaps all, of the missing sailors have been located in their berthing quarters. more
God rest their souls and keep them close.
My heart breaks for their families.
With hi-tech electronics
such as digital doppler radar
I cannot see how this happened.
The freighter was 730′ in length.
Pray for our military.They are at risk
24/7/365 on or off peace or war…
This is more than a little troubling. How do they not know these sailors were aboard. A few days ago they claimed a sailor was missing at sea, the family notified etc, then he turns up in the engine room. What kind of leaders are they turning out now days.
My berthing quarters on board the USS Kitty Hawk CV 63 were located directly one deck below the flight deck on the aft (back) side of the ship just under the arresting gear cables. I can understand how this could have happened to these unfortunate sailors since their berthing quarters were in harms way in case of an unfortunate accident like this. I did hear an emergency breakaway once when we were taking on fuel from a tanker alongside us that crashed into the side of the Kitty hawk when a wave caught the tanker and slammed it into the Kitty Hawk on the starboard side flattening the cat walk, fortunately no one was on the cat walk otherwise they would’ve been crushed to death or swept overboard. There were only two things I could hear when I was asleep down below, the sound for general quarters and bosun’s whistles announcing that something was going on aboard the ship. I got used to those but the first time I was sleeping below deck and I had a jet land right over the top of me (I generally worked nights from 6 PM to 6 AM) and slept during the day) just under the flight deck it scared the snot out of me. But eventually I got used to that as well and could sleep well through just about anything. And if I had been on the USS Forrestal during its terrible fire I would’ve been killed since a lot of the casualties were just below decks.
How do you NOT dodge a 200 Ton surface torpedo???
My guess is that the captain and crew were still Obama-partying like it wuz 2012!
Oops, left of the k… 200k surface torpedo.
Did not know that about the USS Forrestal fire Sen. John McCain was responsible for that.
In prayer for the families of these lost sailors.
Two things: 1. As much as I dislike McCain, he was NOT responsible for the Forrestal disaster. It was caused by bypassing safety regs by pulling the arming pin on a rocket out of sequence to save time. It WAS from McCain’s plane, but he had nothing to do with it.
2. Something doesn’t smell right with this collision. What was the OOD doing? The helmsman? Radarman? Having a container ship ram a destroyer is like having a 500LB tub of goo make an open field tackle on an NFL runningback.
Amen F4UCorsair, that Zuni missile was armed when it shouldn’t have been and the hot exhaust from the huffer next to the plane it was starting across the flight deck caused that missile to launch and blowing the shit out of McCain’s A-4 starting the massive explosion on board the Forrestal.
“Two things: 1. As much as I dislike McCain, he was NOT responsible for the Forrestal disaster. It was caused by bypassing safety regs by pulling the arming pin on a rocket out of sequence to save time. It WAS from McCain’s plane, but he had nothing to do with it.”
“Amen F4UCorsair, that Zuni missile was armed when it shouldn’t have been and the hot exhaust from the huffer next to the plane it was starting across the flight deck caused that missile to launch and blowing the shit out of McCain’s A-4 starting the massive explosion on board the Forrestal.”
You’re both wrong. The Forrestal fire was caused by the inadvertent launch of a Zuni rocket into the A-4 next to McCain’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire#Fire
The Oriskany fire was caused by the inadvertent activation of a signal flare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oriskany_fire#Sequence_of_events
The Enterprise fire was caused by the cook-off of Zuni rocket warhead, overheated by the huffer exaust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_fire#Fire
However, I AM in agreement with you about McCain’s actions after the start of the fire. (Haul ass off the flight deck and go to his ready room because Admiral’s Kid Naval Aviator.)
The
Thanks for correcting.
I mistook what happened on board the USS Enterprise when a huffer set off a Zuni missile with what happened on the Forrestal. Having been through a small fire on board the Kitty Hawk in the engine room in Dec. 1973 which killed 8 sailors. Fires aboard large aircraft carriers full of all sorts of munitions and fueled up jets as well as fuel lines full of JP5 is scary as hell since we were all aware of the devastation from other aircraft carrier fires such as the Forrestal, Enterprise etc.