On 29 July 1967, the USS Forrestal experienced a severe fire while operating on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam that killed 134 Sailors, injured 161 more, and destroyed 21 aircraft. This was (and remains) the second worst loss of life on a U.S. Navy ship since World War II. The disaster resulted in a very long list of lessons learned -many of which can be better classified as “lessons forgotten” from carrier fires during World War II. This time, there was a very intentional institutional effort to cement these lessons into the Navy’s damage control psyche, training, and procedures which transformed the U.S. Navy’s approach to firefighting, damage control, and ordnance handling in the 50 years since the Forrestal disaster.

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