By Shellie Murdaugh
The Island News
A fire aboard the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, was described by one of the tragedy’s survivors as “running like a red river,” racing down the port side of the ship.
The fire eventually claimed the lives of 134 sailors and injured another 161.
Walter Stinner, who was on the ship that day, told his story Wednesday, Nov. 11 to those attending the Veterans Day ceremony at Memorial Park in Hardeeville.
Stinner, a New Jersey native and resident of Margaritaville for the past two years, served as the guest speaker for the event. He recalled the tragic day, at times with tears in his eyes.
Stinner was a U.S. Navy Aviation Ordnanceman before he received an honorable discharge May 31, 1968. An ordnanceman is a weapons specialist in charge of storing, servicing, inspecting and handling all of the ammunition carried on Navy aircraft.
Serving on several ships early in his military career, Stinner’s military service orders placed him on the USS Saratoga, where he traveled and served for eight months.
In October of 1966, he came back to Jacksonville, Fla., where his jet squadron received new orders.
The new orders placed him on the USS Forrestal, the second largest warship in the world with 5,000 shipmates on board. The destination was Vietnam.
“We departed June 6, 1967, and 33 days later sailed to the western Pacific where we pulled into Subic Bay in the Phillipines for four days,” he said. “We re-armed with over 200,000 pounds of bombs rockets and missiles and foodstuffs for 5,000 sailors for the next 30 days.”
After four days, Stinner said the ship departed and arrived on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, North Vietnam, on July 24, 1967.
“That is where my real-life experiences and my training began as an ordnanceman,” he said. “Zero four thirty (4:30 a.m.) every morning, rise and shine; zero five hundred (5 a.m.), on flight deck, jets loaded, armed launch at zero seven hundred (7a.m.).”
Stinner said the workdays continued for 12 to 14 hours everyday on the flight deck with a bombing run every hour and a half.
Stinner said everything had been going great until the fifth day when the supply of bombs, rockets and missiles was getting low. They re-armed with the help of Tidesurge, a Navy ammunition ship which was 200 feet to their ship’s side on the starboard side. He said it took around five or six days with the ship receiving around 200,000 pounds of bombs.
But Stinner said there was a difference in this particular load.
“The difference with this load, though, as we find out, is the Navy decided there were some old bombs in Guam and in the Phillipines that they’d like to get rid of,” he said. “They were left over from the Korean War.”
Stinner said they received the 1,000-pound bombs that night. He described the bombs as “decrepid and rusty.”
“When our captain found out what we received, his orders were to get the bombs off of the ship the next day,” he said.
The next day was July 29, 1967.
Stinner said he had the same routine as he had always had each day.
“First jets loaded up for the first bombing mission of the day,” he said. “Everything goes fine, and the bombing mission is completed. All the aircraft come back at zero eight thirty.”
Stinner recalled a break they had before the next jets were set to deploy.
“We load up our jets, approximately 20 this time, on the next mission,” he said.
The next mission, he said, consisted of approximately 15 of the 1,000-pound rusted bombs.
At 10:52 a.m., eight minutes until launch, Stinner was on the port side half of the ship, which is as far back as you can go on the ship. This is when the horrific events happened.
“All of a sudden, behind my back, I heard this loud explosion,” he said.
Following official Navy investigations and interviews, Stinner later explained what he saw and heard.
“Behind my back, a Zuni rocket that was on a F4 Phantom aircraft on the starboard side had an electrical short in its system, arming a Zuni rocket,” he said. “That rocket launched, went across the deck of our flight deck. The rocket went through my shipmate Richard Hatcher, blowing off his left arm and going through his chest.”
Stinner said Hatcher became the first casualty of the day.
“The rocket continued on, it goes under the belly of an A4 aircraft and a 400-gallon fuel tank loaded up,” he said.
Stinner said the pilot of the aircraft was a young lieutenant named John McCain. McCain later became a United States Congressman after his military service.
“That fuel tank explodes, 400 gallons of gas still on the flight deck,” he recalled. “All of a sudden, like a red river, down the port side of our ship, the fire runs.”
Stinner said there had been around 20 planes loaded with fuel in its path.
The professional fire crash crew of 15 firefighters on board the ship that day also lost their lives within 94 seconds of attempting to extinguish the flames, Stinner said.
Stinner said it was then left up to the crew of the ship to save their shipmates and their ship. On the day of the fire, Stinner said the eight men in his bomb loading crew had been sleeping in a compartment one deck below the flight deck.
“All eight of my shipmates that day perished,” Stinner said as he became choked up with emotion.
Stinner said in the aftermath, the fire raged on for hours.
“Nine 1,000-pound old bombs detonated going down five decks,” he said. “In total, 29 jet aircraft blew up. Other small bombs blew up and below the flight deck fires raged for about 24 hours.”
Stinner said in the end, with the assistance of the USS Intrepid, USS Bonhomme Richard, and other ships, the fires were extinguished.
“The fires were put out, but we lost 134 shipmates and 161 injured,” he said holding back tears. “Of the 134 that we lost, 18 were never recovered and there is a tombstone with their names on it at Arlington National Cemetery.”
Each year, he attends a reunion each anniversary day of the fire with the surviving shipmates.
“When people call or email me and want information, my last words to them always are, never forgotten, never,” he said.
Stinner also received a Quilt of Valor from a Quilts of Valor national representative during the ceremony. The quilt itself was made by the Beaufort Piecing Patriots in Beaufort. He thanked the organization for the honor, stating he would wear it proudly.
Stinner, following the ceremony, had a fellow veteran walk up to him and tell him he was her hero.
“I was really not a hero,” he said. “I was fortunate to be amongst 5,000 heroes,” he said with tears in his eyes. “They saved their shipmates. I am fortunate to be here, and that’s why I speak my voice on behalf of the voices that could never speak again.”
Shellie Murdaugh, who joined The Island News in October 2026, formerly worked as a reporter for The Jasper County Sun Times and Bluffton Today. She also worked for newspapers in Hampton and Colleton counties in South Carolina and in North Carolina at The Richmond County Daily Journal. She can be reached at smurdaugh@theislandnews.com.