a response to: "The First Mysterious Incident"

Please forward this to Richard J. O'Hanlon Jr. of New York, who wrote the segment on the engine room fire aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. I don't want to take away from your ghost-story thunder. I just want to set you straight on a few of your facts! I was there. I was one of many who manned a hose trying fight an unbeatable fire from the main deck. In the end, it claimed the lives of seven men, not six. Six were in the engine room, unsupervised. The seventh man was attempting to fight the fire and rescue the men trapped in "the hole". The fire broke out as a result of a leak in a duplex fuel strainer. There was no supervision in the hole to support the "un-trained" crew. Untrained, meaning not capable of dealing with this type of incident. No one was! The six-man crew did manage to disengage the main boiler and shut it down preventing a catastrophic explosion that would have completely crippled the Kitty Hawk. As it was, we were dead in the water. We had to be towed into the Philippines by tug for repairs. The fire was fought for at least an hour before the order was given by the Captain to close the hatches and flood the space (boiler room) with salt to extinguish the fire. At that point, it was actually unknown exactly how many men were involved. There was a claim that the ship's Captain had given a direct order to evacuate the space and that it was ignored. Further, the Chief who was responsible for placing the fire suppression system "out of service" was immediately flown off the Kitty Hawk. He ended up in the Philippines to escape the threats to his life for the deaths of our shipmates. It was later found that our wonderful Captain didn't get his promotion to Rear Admiral. I will personally see to it that those men are honored in the way they should have been. It has been my quest for 32 years. Just for the Record!

Anonymous