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Kitty Hawk fire December 9, 1965

Today is December 8th in the U.S., but off the coast of North Vietnam, it is already December 9th. Today marks the anniversary of the fire in No. 1 Main Machinery that cost the lives of two of our shipmates and injured 27 more. We were taking aboard fuel, ammunition and food from the USS Sacramento (AOE-1) Captain Martin D Carmody was in Hanger Bay #2 speaking with another officer and the decks were filled with bombs and ammunition waiting to be sent below to the ammunition lockers. I was standing next to the Captain, when he turned and looked at something. His face went as white as a sheet. Black, oily smoke was boiling up from below decks and filling the hanger deck. About that time, General Quarters sounded and we all took off for our battle stations. The first concern on the hanger deck was to get the bombs and ammunition out of harm's way.] The Sacramento cut its lines and veered away, fearing an explosion of the ammunition. Air operations were still going on against the North, and were not interrupted by by the fire. A fuel hose had broken and sprayed fuel all over the machinery space, and immediately ignited, killing Charles Philhauer and Billy Hooper almost instantly. The fire took several hours to bring under control, and we were very lucky that no ammunition went off. The fire was so intense, that the paint on a bulkhead in one of the ammo lockers was blistered off. Rest in peace, shipmates. You gave your lives for us on December 9, 1965

Don Sooby
ABH-2
V-3 Division
1962-1966

Re: Kitty Hawk fire December 9, 1965

I've been trying to remember the name of the reporter (I think he was from Mutual) who put out the exaggerated stories of the fire. As I remember, he was flown back to Subic on the COD shortly after the fire started. Then he started filing the trash stories. He caused the families a lot of concern.

Jim Jones

Re: Kitty Hawk fire December 9, 1965

His name was Hayward Hale Braun (Brown) I think he worked for NBC. He was a reporter during WWII
Don Sooby ABH-2
V-3 Div
1962-1966

Re: Kitty Hawk fire December 9, 1965

Below is from the "blog" about my time in the Navy, found on my web site DonSafer.com .
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The evening of December 6th we were taking on fuel from a tanker while our aircraft were flying missions over the South. Apparently jet fuel was piped through the #3 machinery room on the way to storage when a pipe gasket failed, spraying fuel under high pressure, into the machinery room. Ideally there would be no spark to ignite it but there was. We lost FA Billy Hooper of Blue Earth, Minnesota and FA Charles Philhower of Denville, New Jersey, both from B-Division.
I was in the office when we heard "fire fire #3 machinery room. This is no drill". It just happened that we had a series of ship drawings showing every room (space). We checked the fire's location and discovered that there was perhaps a 3 foot wide "void" between the #3 machinery room and an aircraft weapons magazine. Considering the nature of our mission, it was probably not empty. I expect the magazine was flooded as well as the void since I am here to key about it.
Soon the day crew arrived. It is standard procedure for those not fighting a fire to report to there duty station. They reported thick smoke on the aft hangar deck. Production Control was two decks below the flight deck beneath the Island, overhanging the sea. There was a void beneath us and then the sea. We did prepare our minds for the possibility of abandoning ship.
Although the fire was contained to the machinery room, the smoke, a killer in itself, was spreading and spaces above the fire were too hot to survive in. At least one civilian rep was nearly toast when the wall of his room buckled enough to jam his door. Fortunately a rescue team got to him in time.
Three hours later, when it was over, we had 29 injured.
Flight operations were not affected and repairs were started immediately. Major repairs were done three and 1/2 weeks later in Japan.