IditarodJoe
12-09-2013, 05:50
I was aboard the USS Forrestal during the Winter-Spring 1971 deployment. This was a Med cruise, but I seem to recall that we suffered a fair number of losses during that six months.
One guy walked through an E2 prop and more than one went into a jet intake (although I heard that one survived). We lost two VF-11(?) pilots when their Phantom went off the bow cat and dropped like a rock. A launch officer lost the top of his head when he mis-judged the wing of the plane he was launching. Another guy didn't come back from liberty and, reportedly, later washed up by the pier in Naples. I believe there were a number of others . . . the number 12 sticks in my mind.
My son is now on his sixth carrier deployment, four to the gulf, and I haven't heard of a single casualty. Has carrier life actually become that much safer? Is the Navy trying to keep these things quiet? Is there somewhere you can go to get this information? I was in navigation and may have had a little more access to this information than some others, but a ship is still a small community and word spreads.
Just seems curious to me.
One guy walked through an E2 prop and more than one went into a jet intake (although I heard that one survived). We lost two VF-11(?) pilots when their Phantom went off the bow cat and dropped like a rock. A launch officer lost the top of his head when he mis-judged the wing of the plane he was launching. Another guy didn't come back from liberty and, reportedly, later washed up by the pier in Naples. I believe there were a number of others . . . the number 12 sticks in my mind.
My son is now on his sixth carrier deployment, four to the gulf, and I haven't heard of a single casualty. Has carrier life actually become that much safer? Is the Navy trying to keep these things quiet? Is there somewhere you can go to get this information? I was in navigation and may have had a little more access to this information than some others, but a ship is still a small community and word spreads.
Just seems curious to me.