Mighty Thunder 
The big news on 25 October 1967 was the long delayed ROLLING THUNDER attack on the large MIG airfield at Phucyen about 15 miles north of Hanoi. There was another story on USS Coral Sea operating at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin that day that was much more memorable for a couple hundred sailors who “dodged a Zuni rocket” run amuck. MIGHTY THUNDER adds their personal testimony to the RTR log in this lengthy and detailed post. There are “no easy days” on an aircraft carrier operating at-sea. The rule is applicable in every one of the thousand spaces on the ship—including the mess decks…..
25 October 1967 – WestPac Zuni Rocket Mishap
”The United States Navy disclosed yesterday that an air-to-surface rocket accidentally ignited on the attack carrier Coral Sea off North Vietnam this week, injuring nine seaman. Three of the men were critically burned. All nine were flown to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.
The incident occurred Wednesday night while crewmen were assembling the Zuni rocket, used by Navy aircraft raids in Vietnam. The motor ignited and shot the rocket forward about 20 feet into a steel bulkhead.
A spokesman at the Navy fleet headquarters here said the rocket did not explode.”
- Four of the men subsequently died of their injuries:
10/29/67 SA Carlyle B. Pomeroy, Jr., Denver, Co
10/30/67 AO3 Victor R. Wooden, White City, Or
10/30/67 SN Ronald A. Hessman, Los Angeles, Ca
12/7/67 AO3 Donald D. Maki, Hutchinson, Mn
[Submitted by various sources] – The rocket motor was next to the bulkhead and on the other side was the first class lounge where they had a hot plate on all the time which cooked off the Zuni rocket.
The missile became lodged in the bulkhead without the warhead exploding. It was then decided to cut the bulkhead out around the rocket. The rocket and bulkhead were carefully removed and gently thrown overboard. Walt “The Salt” Hardy who was on board in 1967 when it happened was also aboard in 1983. When he left the ship in 1983 the patched bulkhead was still noticeable.
[Follow up – Lloyd Becker] – I was aboard the Coral Sea on Oct 25 1967 when the rocket launched, my GQ was two decks below the forward mess decks right under the resulting fire. The article you have is a little wrong. The rocket was accidentally launched as it was being assembled and lodged in the First Class Mess bulkhead, luckily it didn’t arm. The fire was intense and the forward magazines were flooded which were next to us. the fire teams that put out the fire should have been commended because this deck was used for assembling weapons and was of course full, so the danger of something cooking off was possibility. After the fire was put out the warhead had to be cut out and be disposed of, as I recall after we were notified the fire was out it took about four hours for this to take place.
[Follow up – Albert Bodt] – The Zuni rocket incident. I had just showered and gotten into my rack at around 2145 when a fire alarm sounded. I was in the E-Div berthing compartment 3rd deck amid ship near the post office. A second alarm sounded and not long after that a third alarm then general quarters. I grabbed my clothes and shoes, and like everyone else headed for the ladder to the second deck, reminding myself of “port aft and starboard foreward” during GQ. The smell of burning paint and smoke was evident and it scared the crap out of me, not knowing how bad things were. We all started in the wrong direction but soon everyone had remembered their mantra as well and we headed to our GQ stations.
As I moved to my GQ station on the aft mess decks via the port side, the burned sailors were brought by me in litters. My GQ station was not 5 yards from the hatch going down to sickbay and I watched as the wounded were brought down. During the night there was a fire in 2C fire room and guys were going down to the bilges to get those poor guys who were passing out from the heat. There were 10-20 guys lying on the aft mess decks, passed out from heat exhaustion. They took the liquid O2 tanks out of the A4 Skyhawks to administer oxygen to those guys.
I was an electrician and was involved in deengergizing the circuits so the fire could be fought safely, There was 4-5 inches of water in the passageways on the second deck just foreward of the mess decks as well. In any event, they safely removed the Zuni rocket still embedded in the bulkhead, (they had cut a 2 foot hole around the warhead) and gently carried it by my damage control team and went up he ladder to the hangar deck on their way to the fantail (I presume) to dispose of it.
Few people remember that the missile went through a live 440 volt 400 cycle power panel and had lodged between two live buss bars. The whole power panel had to be disassembled and removed before they could even begin to cut around the missile warhead,. That is why it took all night. By 0730 the following morning it was pretty much over. The reason I go into so much detail is that that incident, and my witness to the injuries and the heroics of the docs and corpsmen in sickbay steered me into wanting to become a physician. Subsequently, after leaving the ship on 7 August of 1970, I started my education and ended up in med school in 1979. I am now a specialist in Internal Medicine and subspecializing in Nephrology (kidneys), a direct result of that incident.
[Follow up – Albert Bodt] – I was there during the incident. We were at GQ all night until around 0700. The Zuni pod, as I recall was on the starboard side of the foreward mess deck with the business end facing the bulkhead of the first class lounge, about 15-18 feet away. The tail end of the pod was about 4-5 feet from the starboard bulkhead. The inciting incident did not involve a hotplate but apparently the weapons crewman testing the pod for electrical continuity with a 1.5volt multimeter set off the live Zuni. He was sitting, straddled across the pod with his legs testing the pins on the connector into which the plug from the aircraft is attached. As he connected the multimeter to two critical pins on the connector, there was enough current from the multimeter battery to light off the rocket. He took the full blast of the rocket exhaust and I remember seeing him as he was carried past me in a litter to sick bay as we were going to GQ. The first fire alarm was at precisely 2200hrs, then a second fire alarm was sounded 30 seconds later, then a third, then GQ was sounded at around 2202hrs. The rocket had launched from the tube into the first class lounge bulkhead knocking the television off the stand in the lounge, and had penetrated a 440V/400cycle controller panel which had to be removed before the rocket itself could be removed. It took all night until around 0730 the following morning. As I recall, the controller panel was replaced but the circular weld could still be seen behind it where the bulkhead had been replaced.
[Follow up – Denis Howard] – I was onboard when this incident occurred. I was in the first class lounge when the rocket ignited and lodged in the bulkhead. The first class lounge (couldn’t call it a Mess) was located in forward mess deck area starboard side, this area had been taken over for ordnance assembly. I spoke to one of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians who disposed of this rocket afterwards. Working party handled rocket pods returned from strike aircraft after missions (not all Aviation Ordnancemen as this was a low tech job) job was to visually insure no rockets remained in 4 rocket pod container, then with a battery pack RESTEP the firing switch. Crew apparently failed to inspect prior to resteping and a rocket remained in the pod. Cycling the switch fired the rocket which did not travel far enough to arm (rocket warhead had an impeller and had to travel a minimum distance to arm). Rocket warhead did not explode, it was safely extracted and disposed of by EOD Team onboard.
[Follow up – king@bus.orst.edu] – The Zuni rocket accident in October 1967 involved a lot more than merely the forward mess decks fire. The ship went to GQ because the rocket somehow managed to short out the ventilation systems to the main boiler room, the zuni rocket magazines on either side began to heat up, etc., etc. A damage control chief later told me it was a close call. I have told the story for years to various NROTC classes….
[Follow up – Jonathan King] – The ship also went to GQ when the ventilation systems for the boiler rooms mysteriously shut down. (Later, it was discovered that the Zuni and/or Zuni fire had short- circuited some electrical stuff, etc.) Meanwhile, Zuni rocket magazine next to the boiler rooms began to heat up. “Naturally,” one sprinkling system was down for repair and the other barely dribbled out water. A damage control chief later told me he figured the zuni’s came within several degrees of cooking off. That would have been a real disaster!
Several crewmen were subsequently awarded medals for going back into the boiler room to shut down the furnaces. Meanwhile, other folks were throwing all the Zunis overboard and anything that looked like it might explode on the hanger deck. In fact, someone threw a box overboard containing a “silver rotary radar joint” for our E2A which cost upwards of $500,000. The plane guard later found it floating the the Gulf and returned it to us. The ship secured from General Quarters about four hours later.
[Follow up – EN3 D.P. Dougherty A4 Division] – I was aboard Coral Sea during the Oct. 25 1967 Zuni rocket mishap. When GQ sounded I went to my battle station inside the first class mess manning fog foam machine 3. The compartment was full of smoke and ankle deep water and despite many calls on the sound powered phone to REP2 for an O.B.A., no one came[nor did my fellow machine operator] and as the smoke cleared after quite a while I saw the nose of the Zuni sticking through the bulkhead and I experienced a feeling like I was “passing a brick”. After a while the hatch opened and the X.O. [I don’t remember his name but the C..O.’s name was Capt. Shawcross] and a chief came in and the chief said “What the hell are you doing in here”? And I said “Waiting for an O.B.A., chief”. They looked at the Zuni ,then came back to me,and the X.O. asked my name and said “You will get a medal that will help your career, but I think my career is over.” The chief gave him a murderous look, and said “Come on,kid”. We went and helped bring up hot rounds from a magazine. I will never forget that G.Q. or my brave shipmates, nor the cold words of the X.O.
[Follow up – Jim Doil] – I was one of the survivors of the ’67 Zuni accident. There were 9 of us in the forward mess deck when the rocket was fired. The result was 4 died and I was the worst of the injured. I spent almost a year in the hospital with 37% 2nd & 3rd degree burns. I would like to find any of the other survivors. My time on the grand old lady brings back so many fond memories.
[Follow up – Robert Skelton] – I was on board the Coral Sea during the 1967 Zunnie Rocket incident. I was a BT2 assigned to 2-B fireroom and my GQ station was in a berthing area little aft of 2-C fireroom. My assignment, when we were @ GQ, was nozzelman on a firehose on a damage control team. When it came time to remove those warheads from the locker I was one of the work party to go into that storage area to remove them. Myself, as well as everyone else was pretty scared. We formed a line of about 30 people that went up the ladder to the hanger deck and acrossed the hanger deck and over the side at the elevator. As we relayed them out from the fourth deck up to the hanger deck and over the side they had fire hoses spraying on the overhead to keep everything cool and that sea water was cold. We all were in our scivies and tee shirts and we all looked like a bunch of drown rats. The Senior Chief said they were very unstable because of the heat and it would not be very good to have one of them detonate.
When the rocket went off it went accross the compartment and lodged in the bulkhead where the rocket motor continied to run until it was out of fuel. When it went through bulkhead it lodged in a electricial distribution panel on the other side of the bulkhead in the First Class mess. It just so happens that was the distribution panel that supplied power to forced draft blowers in 2-C fireroom and any cooling vents that were running were out also. Right above the fireroom was the storage area for the rocket warheads. When the vent system in the fireroom was knocked out it rapidly allowed the fireroom temperature to rise which intern caused the heat problem in the rocket storage area to escalate. Under normal steaming conditions, when all ventilation systems were up and running, it was a continious 140-150 drgrees on top of the boiler which is directly under the rocket storage area. Sometimes we did some of our wash and hung it up on top of the boiler where it would dry in 10 minutes or less. After they finially got a handle on the problem, they realized they had to take 2-C boiler off the line. By now the heat in the fireroom was unbearable. They took our damage control team to the air trunk above 2-C fireroom where we went down in teams of three for 5 minutes only to try to wrap up the boiler. I don’t know how hot it was but I do know it would turn your skin red after 5 minutes down there. I went down for three rounds and the last thing I remembered after the third round was looking up the air trunk and seeing people up at the top yelling for me to hurry up the ladder. The next thing I remember I was lying on the mess decks in my scivies with ice packed all around me and some guy was trying to wake me up. I did find out latter that a guy carried me from the air trunk to the mess decks. When I found out who it was I looked him up and thanked him. The only thing I really got out of it was the fact I looked like a lobster for a couple of weeks.
One of other stories I read mentioned that some people got some awards for what they had done. I don’t think that is true. I think those other guys as well as myself are not looking for a pat on the back but we need to try to get the story straight. We all did what we had to do for ship and shipmates and I would do it all again!
email sent 8/30/17 to cv43@usscoralsea.net
Subj:25 October 1967 WestPac Zuni Rocket Mishap (http://www.usscoralsea.net/mishaps2.php)
After all these years I just came across this website and very much appreciated the history and honor that it recounts for those who served and gave their lives on board ‘Mustang.’ It brought back memories both fond and painful of my brief time aboard. For what it is worth I thought I would share those highlights.
I was an aircraft commander of one of the several flight crews of Big Mother combat search and rescue helos from HS-6 off USS Kearsarge that were transferred to USS Coral Sea to provide SAR coverage for Yankee Station while Kearsarge was temporally off-station for in-port replenishment. Not long before our detachment was transferred back to Kearsarge one of our helos was downed awaiting a flight-critical replacement part. As the only maintenance test pilot on our detachment, my crew and related maintenance personnel remained behind awaiting the part, repairs and test flight. I was on the flight deck assisting with the departure of the rest of the detachment when one of our transfer helos was lost over the side with a full load of personnel and cargo; our first crewman aboard lost his life assisting others as the aircraft sank.
The Zuni rocket mishap occurred while we were still aboard. We later heard that it happened in the first class mess/lounge during their evening movie. My crew’s designated Fire/GQ station was in our down helo on the hangar deck (perhaps just to keep us out of the way.) We spent most of that night in our aircraft and I clearly recall that besides the first (rocket motor fire) and second (electrical panel related fire) GQ’s there was a third fire alarm after having secured from the second one. The account we were told about that third alarm was that an (exhausted) sailor had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette, lighting his rack on fire. The memories of these events will never be forgotten.
I have a CVA-43 patch on my flight jacket, proudly displayed with my other deployment patches.
Respectfully, Bill Hobdy (then) LT, USN
