Sailors to the End
The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It
By Gregory A. Freeman

     On July 29, 1967, the US Navy aircraft carrier, USS Forrestal, was stationed off Vietnam when, on one of its own planes, a faulty detonation switch accidentally fired a rocket across the flight deck into the aircraft occupied by pilot (now Senator) John McCain and set off a chain reaction conflagration with the bombs on surrounding planes.

     This is a story that has long been suppressed by the Navy which, true to Navy bureaucratic tradition, had denied any culpibility, but placed the blame for the entire operation on the ship's commander and its crew.

     For days, the crew struggled to extinguish the fires. The crew comprised mainly of 20-21 year old young men were heroes who suffered various kinds of hell....being trapped in damaged compartments...going through rivers of burning jet fuel to try to rescue fellow sailors. There were 134 men lost to the fires.

     The details of the crew's experiences are honestly told by the surviving members of the crew with harrowing, sometimes grotesque details which leave the reader with a sense of horror and wonder how anyone could survive.

     Freeman has given us an expertly-written book that is long overdue. He presents the facts with no holds barred and gives the men of the Forrestal their true place in American naval history. It is a book strongly recommended to all Americans as an example of how ordinary every day citizen-sailors rise to great heights of heroism and sacrifice.