"Herb, I thought I had killed you."
The 5-inch Zuni off of the double-seater F4B#110 was a dud . . .
anyone seeing tape can see it float erratically in front of McCain's #416 single-seater.
It is
not how you imagine a missile firing in a straight and fast straight trajectory.
Also, it is discharged from the right side of #110 in History Channel video reconstruction.
McCain was in the cockpit then.
There is no fire visible in McCain's aircraft as he gets out and lies on the front nose . . . then slides off
on the #417 side. McCain's #416 has both bombs attached, though he says that both had fell to the deck. US Navy does not agree.
On video tape, in original de-briefing (above in post # x) McCain says the first thing he notices lying prone on the deck next to his plane
is a pilot on fire from jet fuel.
Rescue Team 8 responded to a fire running "toward McCain's Skyhawk"
and as jet fuel seeps down two decks below and explodes the bombs stored below the entire rescue crew perishes.
McCain 1967 version :
"I started running over towards him and I was near a group of men with a fire hose. As I was about 10 feet from him the first bomb exploded and blew me back about 15 feet. I sat up and saw a lot of bodies near me (some who had been on the hose) and I ran and jumped over the starboard cat walk [under the flight deck]."
McCain did join in with "some fine enlisted men" in carting off and dumping overboard bombs still in carts on the lower deck,
and acknowledges coming across dead crew members.
Lt. Commander Fred White of #405 also perished.
The original plane about to take-off when redirected with the arm point to the control tower upper camera was a C-130 Hercules
shown in an earlier file photo below.. It was on catapault #1.
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R.I.P.
