Military firefighters in war & peace

Editor's Note: In an effort to recognize firefighters of the armed forces killed in the line of duty, VFW magazine solicited accounts from readers. Here are some excerpts from a few letters. If you know of additional incidents, please feel free to share them with the magazine.

Perhaps the best-known loss of military firefighters occurred aboard the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, off the coast of Vietnam. The ship's company V-1 Division lost 11 men and the bulk of those sailors were either engaged in fire fighting or were killed by 1,000-pound bomb detonations. Another two men died from toxic gas fighting the fire below deck.

Related Results

Ken Killmeyer
Historian, USS Forrestal Assn.

The Crash/Salvage Team was the primary fire-fighting unit on a carrier flight deck. So when a fire broke out on the USS Enterprise Jan. 14, 1969, 70 miles off Hawaii, Repair 7 Alpha was first on the scene. Four of its men died fighting the fire along with eight other sailors. Most were manning fire hoses when they lost their lives.

Mike Carlin
West Grove, Pa.

On May 15, 1962, four airmen (including the fire chief) were killed while fighting a fire in a B-47 medium jet at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. It exploded, and firemen fought the blaze for 3 1/2 hours.

Harold Hart
Acworth, Ga.

In the fall of 1952, at K-8 Air Base in Korea, three firemen were killed when an F-84 preparing for takeoff caught fire and a bomb blew under a wing.

Francis W. Goggins
Prattville, Ala.

The Marine Corps' specific MOS for firefighters is 7051, and vets of that specialty have an Aircraft Fire Fighting & Rescue Association. Its scroll shows seven Marines killed in Vietnam. They died on different dates--five from hostile causes and two in accidents.

Richard E. Takacs
Laguna Beach, Calif.

On Oct. 21, 1943, nine Marines and one soldier were trapped along Hauser Creek in Cleveland National Forest southern California and died while fighting fire. A plaque in the canyon and at Descanso Station honors their memory.

E. Nelson Dean
District Ranger

Records for WWII are scanty, but soldiers of the Army's Engineer Fire Fighting platoons died from Burma to Italy, including in action at Anzio, for example. Others, no doubt, were killed. But while researching for my book, Firefighters in Fatigues, I could not locate a separate listing of their names.

James G. Davis
Maui, Hawaii

There certainly is interest in erecting a memorial to military firefighters killed in the line of duty. However, collecting the names is a monumental task. The most appropriate place for such a memorial would be Goodfellow Air Force Base--home of the military fire academy--in Texas.