It’s a dangerous place. Fuel and bombs and hydraulic fluid and spinning propellers and steel
everywhere.
On the afternoon of April 18, there was a fire.
A fuel line on an A-7 Corsair ruptured during refueling. JP-5 jet fuel sprayed across the hangar deck. Somebody’s tow tractor threw a spark.
The whole bay went up.
I remember the sound first. A roar like a freight train. Then the heat. Like opening an oven door, except the oven was the size of a football field.
Then the smoke. Thick and black and greasy. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
The alarms were screaming. The general quarters bell. Somebody on the loudspeaker yelling, Fire, fire, fire, Hangar Bay Two.
I was a team leader on the hangar deck fire party. We ran toward it. That’s what you do. Everybody else runs away from a fire on a ship. The fire party runs toward it.
