Early on, Forrestal engaged in various training and exercise sorties but was also placed on-call during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and during the Lebanon unrest of 1958. The Vietnam War (1955-1975) commitment then pulled Forrestal into combat service where her warplanes were used in anger against North Vietnamese targets. However, it was during this tour when stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin during 1967 that her first infamous fire broke out - the cause being a "Zuni" rocket misfiring from a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II into a fully-laden Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The Skyhawk's fuel tank ruptured and ignited causing the first of several notable fires. Tragically, the even cost the lives of 134 personnel and went on to injure 161. Additionally, some twenty-one USN aircraft were written off.
During the 1970s, Forrestal served in Mediterranean waters and undertook humanitarian assistance roles, patrols and served as a deterrent. In July of 1972, while berthed at Norfolk, Virginia, another fire struck her though this outbreak was deliberately set by a crewman. The damage was such that it forced her into repair and she waited months before being put into service again. She replaced USS John F. Kennedy in the Mediterranean. On June 30th, 1975, she was officially redesignated as "CV-59" and, in 1977, underwent a period of overhaul.
On April 8th, 1978, another fire was reported which originated in her machine room. Steam had apparently ignited her insulation but personnel were quick to extinguish the flames and limit damage. On April 11th, yet another fire emerged, this time at one of her steam catapults and this was joined by a second fire located in a storeroom. Again the crew responded professionally and had the fires under control with minimal damage in time. On May 10th, the vessel began flooding which cost most of her food stores and tens of thousands of dollars (USD) in damage. For the latter part of the decade, Forrestal continued partaking in various NATO exercises and training endeavors.
USS Forrestal was available and at-the-ready for Operation Desert Storm (1991) but her services were not called into play until late May. She was redesignated to "AVT-59" to serve as a training carrier and succeed USS Lexington (CV-16) in the same role. A fourteen-month overhaul greeted her in 1992 until her formal decommissioning order came down in early 1993. She was formally decommissioned on September 11th, 1993 though efforts to preserve her as a floating museum failed and she was given up for scrap in 2013 - sold for one cent.
Because of her many onboard fires, the vessel earned herself the unflattering nicknames of "Firestal", "Zippo" and "Forest Fire".
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