Mighty Thunder is proud to present Dr. “Brown Bear” Schaffert’s personal experience aboard the Oriskany when fire broke out on the hanger deck, October 26, 1966. 

 At 07:21 tomorrow morning, 26 October, I will be kneeling by the side of my bed, giving thanks to God for sparing my life 50 years earlier, at that exact moment.

I had just finished shaving, was already in my flight suit, and was returning my shaving gear to my stateroom aboard the USS Oriskany on Yankee Station off Vietnam.  As I stepped out of the “head” (restroom) into a passageway, I was startled by a loud alarm over the ship’s 1MC:  “THIS IS A DRILL, THIS IS A DRILL.  FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! – FIRE ON THE HANGAR DECK.”  My head automatically snapped to the door leading to the hangar deck, which was only two steps to my left.  I was immediately aware of heavy, acrid smoke coming underneath that door.  I ran for the curtained doorway of my room, only a few steps down the passageway.  I threw back the curtain to see my roommate Lieutenant Commander Norm Levy sitting up on the edge of his bunk.  I tossed the shaving gear on my bunk, which was directly above his, and shouted at him:  “It’s no drill, Norm, we’re on fire!  Let’s get the hell out of here.”  At that moment, the ship’s bugle sounded the call for GENERAL QUARTERS.  Were we under attack?  I was scheduled for the ALERT FIVE (ready fighter aircraft) at 07:45, which meant I needed to get to our squadron Ready Room immediately and into my flight gear.  I ran down the passageway, banging on the sheet metal wall and shouting:  “IT’S NO DRILL!  WE’RE ON FIRE!  WE’RE ON FIRE!”  I was about ten steps short of the end of the passageway, which entered the opposite side of the hangar bay, away from my room, when I felt the concussion and heard the explosion which literally blew me out into the hangar bay.  I was tumbling, and then I was skidding on my back.  I turned on my right side to get up and saw a huge fireball rolling across the top of the hangar bay. I ran the 50 feet further down the hangar bay deck and stumbled down the hatch to the next deck and into the passageway which led directly to Ready Room Three, and my flight gear.

The rest is history, which I’ve written about for years.  My memorial to Norm Levy is engraved on a stainless steel plaque and entombed in the Oriskany now asleep in the deep off Pensacola, Florida.

For more than 20 years after that fateful morning, when Norm Levy and so many of my shipmates perished in our fight to save the ship, I relived that event in my dreams, two or three times a night.  With the help of our most merciful God, which came in the form of some wonderful personal companionships, it finally faded.  Now, with His Grace, and even with a failing memory, I can recall it at will, in living color, and even smell again the deadly phosphorous smoke from the munitions locker that exploded.

I will not do that tomorrow morning at 07:21. I will be repeating the 44 names of my fallen comrades, and asking God’s almighty blessings upon their heroic souls.

An ungrateful nation, both the government and the people, has long forgotten them and the supreme sacrifice they so freely and valiantly made to save Oriskany . . . and me!  God is good, He never forgets!

Very Respectfully,

Dick Schaffert aka Brown Bear

PS:  Oriskany and Air Wing 16 were knocked down but not out.  We limped back to America, but were back in the fight on Yankee Station in 8 months.  During our two and a half years of McNamara and Johnson’s infamous Rolling Thunder, we lost 93 of our assigned 65 combat aircraft:  242 were hit by enemy fire, with 180 damaged and 62 shot down.  Of our 72 assigned combat air crew: 73 were lost, with 56 killed in action, 12 prisoners of war, and 5 missing in action.  In 1968, our Air Wing Commander was recognized on the Ed Sullivan Show as the then-most decorated combat hero in Naval Aviation.