[John Rogers]

Bombs are fine things to have as long as they are dropped on the right people at the right places. Back in the days of "Rolling Thunder" (I think) the Enterprise, CVA(N) 65 was flying around the clock air strikes. On an Aircraft carrier there are several bomb elevators and usually they come up half way from the magazine, a armored door closes, the bomb(s) are then wheeled over to the second elevator that goes to the flight deck. The aft elevator on the Big E came up and then stopped right next to the 1st class mess and the bomb would get wheeled right through the mess to the upper elevator. Since the "Remove before flight" flag that armed the bomb was usually in place we didn't worry much.

So one evening suddenly there was a huge BANG and the ship shook some and the Red Shirts came running through hollering to run like hell! So we did!

Well it seems a fin on a 500# bomb had a bad crack in one of the fins so the red shirt wheeled the bomb cart quickly to the closed door to go back down and it quickly slid down to fully open. Just at the edge the poor guy saw the ELEVATOR WAS NOT UP!!! He let go of the dead man's handle but our nicely waxed floors did not stop the cart! Oh my oh my.

We found out later a broken wire in the control panel for the elevator and doors caused the malfunction and lucky for me and quite a few others the bomb and cart landed on the elevator, tail end first! The outcome of all this was to stop waxing the path the carts took and to NOT rush at any time.