USS Forrestal Named after Beacon Native James V. Forrestal

Recent news coverage of John McCain's military service in the navy during the VietNam War referenced the late Senator's near death experience as a pilot of a A-4 Skyhawk aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in the summer of 1967. An accidental release of a rocket by a jet on the take-off deck started a fire and explosions that caused the deaths of 134 sailors and the lucky escape of McCain from his burning plane. In his memoir, "Faith of My Fathers," McCain wrote of the aftermath of this tragic incident:

"After s short while, I went to sick bay to have my burns and shrapnel wounds treated. There I found a horrible scene of many men burned beyond saving, grasping at the last moment of life. Someone called my name, a kid, anonymous to me because the fire had burned off all his identifying features. He asked me if a pilot in our squadron was okay. I replied that he was. The young man said, 'Thank God,' an died. I left the sick bay unable to keep my composure. Men sacrificed their lived for one another and for their ship. Many of them were 18 and 19 years old."

That wounded carrier in 1967 was the USS Forrestal, a ship with a special connection to our community ... as it was named after Beacon native James V. Forrestal, a naval aviator in World War I, Secretary of the Navy in World War II, and our nation's first Secretary of Defense. The Forrestal was the first of its class of super carriers, the biggest warship ever built when it was christened in December of 1954. On that occasion the Navy issued special invitations to the event in Newport News, Virginia, to Mrs. James Forrestal and her two sons, and also reached out to the late Secretary's family in Beacon and to important local officials. Henry L.A. Forrestal, brother of James V., his family, Beacon Mayor Henry Kennelly, former mayor J. Lewis Bolton, and Franklin Den Besten, the new principal of the James V. Forrestal Elementary School in Beacon--all flew in a Navy plane to Virginia to attend the christening of the USS Forrestal. In October of 1955, the Forrestal was officially commissioned, and again, the Henry Forrestal family and Mayor Kennelly flew to Virginia via Navy plane to attend the ceremony.

James V. Forrestal's service to the Navy and to the Roosevelt and Truman administrations was recognized by a grateful nation in the naming of the navy's first super carrier after this Beacon son

The USS Forrestal had decades of service on the seas before it was decommissioned in 1993. The ship's sailor heroes that McCain wrote about binds the ties between the Forrestal name and our proud city even closer.

Mrs. James Forrestal christens the carrier,Dec. 11,1954

James V. Forrestal and Admiral Chester Nimitz