John Frederick Francis was born on April 12, 1933, and was an Unrestricted Line Officer (Pilot) with 14 years of service in the U.S. Navy, arriving in Vietnam waters assigned to the Heavy Attack Squadron 4 (VAH-4), Carrier Air Wing 16 (CVW-16), USS Oriskany (CVA-34), Task Force 77 (TF-77), 7th Fleet.
USS Oriskany (CVA-34) departed San Diego, California for her second Vietnam deployment, and third wartime deployment on May 26, 1966. The carrier arrived on station off the coast of Vietnam a few weeks later and commenced operations in support of operations in Vietnam.
On October 26, 1966, at approximately 0728 hours, as the USS Oriskany was preparing to begin flight operations and stowing ordnance from night operations, an alarm was sounded for a fire in compartment A-107-M, a flare locker, containing over 250 MK-24 magnesium flares, located just off the forward hangar deck, adjacent to the Starboard sponson. A flare had accidentally been actuated, and the sailor handling the flare had thrown it into the locker and dogged the door shut. Hundreds of these 24 lb. flares were stored here and were about to be ignited, burning at 3000 degrees. General quarters were sounded, and firefighting teams began to attempt to cool the area near the burning locker, but because of the high pressure within the locker caused by the fire, it made it impossible to open the locker door to directly fight the fire. About 10 minutes into the fire, the pressure became so great that the doors blew out, igniting a helicopter located on the port side forward of the hangar deck. With the ship headed into the wind, getting ready to launch aircraft, the heat, and smoke were drawn forward into the berthing quarters located forward of the hangar bay. Other sailors in the area worked to move aircraft, many of which were bomb and fuel-laden, from the hangar to the flight deck to prevent them from catching fire. On Deck Six, in a pump room servicing the forward elevator, the sailor on duty attempted to close the large air vents servicing the compartment, which were starting to blow smoke in; unable to do so, he used wet rags to protect himself. Closer to the fire, sailors began attempting to evacuate "officers' country", a series of staterooms occupied largely by pilots assigned to USS Oriskany's air wing.
Within five minutes, an explosion occurred in the flare locker, the result of multiple flares igniting at once. Aircraft in the hangar bay caught fire, and nearby sailors attempting to cool the area were burned. Down in officers' country, several men were killed when a fireball shot down the passageway, burning their lungs. Other personnel suffocated to death in the passageways. On the flight deck, firefighting crews worked feverishly to cool the steel deck, while other flight deck personnel began pushing ordnance off the flight deck. Down in the hangar, the aircraft that caught fire was pushed over the side, along with ordnance that was staged in the hangar from an earlier replenishment. A pilot trapped in his stateroom was able to find a wrench to open the porthole. With items in his room catching fire, the pilot continually wrapped himself in wet sheets or blankets, and kept his head out the porthole; as the sheets or blankets began to smolder, the pilot would wet the items down again, wrap himself up, and return to the porthole. Unable to escape due to the fire outside his room, the pilot kept this up for some time. Finally, an enlisted sailor discovered his plight and was able to supply him with a firehose, a battle lantern, and an Oxygen Breathing Apparatus for the duration of the fire. The pilot used the hose to fight the fire and cool his stateroom, and keep the fire from spreading again into the room. Nearby, the executive officer of the air wing's Crusader squadron, finding himself in a similar situation, stripped naked and forced his way through his porthole. He was able to obtain a firefighting suit and later helped the ship's fire marshal in organizing firefighting parties. In the elevator pump room, the fireman on duty attempted to request assistance from his supervisor. Frustrated over the lack of progress, the sailor tried to find out if there was something keeping help from reaching him and discovered that a large amount of water from the firefighting efforts had settled over the hatch. He opened the hatch in an attempt to save himself, partially flooding the compartment in the process. Trapped by water and smoke, the fireman continued to try to keep himself safe until his supervisor and the ship's ordnance officer, a qualified Navy diver who happened to find scuba gear, entered the compartment and rescued him. Coincidentally, the scuba gear belonged to the trapped sailor. Near the pump room, several officers and enlisted men took refuge in a void extending from below the hangar to a deck below the pump room. One officer had been badly burned, and a second was knocked unconscious after nearly falling off a ladder inside the void. After breaking the padlocks off of storage spaces inside the void to release the usable air inside those spaces, the officers and men began to wait for the fire out in the void. Eventually, though, they decided to try to make their way to safety. One of the enlisted men left the void to seek out an OBA and was able to find a pair of stretcher-bearers to help carry out the injured officers. Working through some initial difficulties, the officers and men eventually made their way to safety. At approximately 1030 hours, the ship's fire marshal, who had been leading firefighting operations on the hangar deck, informed Damage Control Central that the fire was under control. The last of the smaller fires were extinguished around five hours later. Unable to remain on station, USS Oriskany set course for the Naval station at Subic Bay in the Philippines. During the fire, some of the injured were flown from the USS Oriskany to the USS Constellation (CVA-64). 36 Officers and 8 Enlisted men were killed as a result of the fire. One of the 36 Officers killed that day was LT John Fredric Francis.
On October 28, 1966, a memorial service was held aboard the USS Oriskany for those killed in the fire. After offloading her fallen and undergoing repair in Subic Bay, the ship returned to San Francisco's Hunter Point Naval Shipyard for more extensive repairs. The ship returned to service the following year, undergoing training before returning to Yankee Station. A Navy investigation determined that magnesium flares, such as those involved in the fire, could ignite when jarred in certain cases; this is believed to be what caused the flare to initially ignite.
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