Machinist Mate 2 Timothy R. King was several decks down in the USS Nimitz when he felt a jolt around 11:15 p.m. on May 26, 1981.
Jolts are not unusual when war planes land on the deck of the Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
What made this one different was the thick black smoke that poured out of the air vents soon after the jolt.
“We knew something was wrong,” recalls King, 61, of Reading.
Any doubt in his mind quickly evaporated when, moments later, a general quarters call was announced over the ship’s intercom.
That meant that the ship went into lockdown, with all compartments sealed.
The 21-year-old King and his shipmates wouldn’t know for certain what happened until the next morning, but an EA-6B Prowler surveillance plane crashed on landing, rammed F-14 fighters on deck and triggered an intense fire that set off Sidewinder and other missiles.
The incident cost the lives of 14 crewmen and injured about 45 others, according to news reports and unclassified Navy documents.
On its 40th anniversary, less than a week before Memorial Day, King reflected on the tragic loss of lives and the inherent danger of operating one of the largest warships in the world.
Named after Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet during World War II, the Nimitz was on a routine mission off the coast of Fort Lauderdale on that fateful day.
“I wanted to remember the crew members who died and were injured,” said King. “It goes to show that servicemen die in peace time, too.”
King, who had been a resident of Glenside, Montgomery County, enlisted in the Navy when he was 17 in August 1977 and was discharged in August 1983, according to Navy discharge papers.
A nuclear machinist mate, King’s photo appears among the crew of the reactor department in the USS Nimitz Cruise Book 1981.
King says he was aboard the Nimitz when it was ordered to the Indian Ocean after Iran seized American hostages on Nov. 4, 1979. Aircraft involved in Operation Eagle Claw, the ill-fated attempt to rescue the hostages, took off from the Nimitz.
King was on watch in the reactor area when the plane crashed on the flight deck on May 26, 1981. He did not see the resulting fire, fed by aviation fuel leaking from damaged planes, and only knew one of the victims.
He and other sailors on duty couldn’t leave their posts during the incident, but could hear some transmissions on the intercom, or squawk box in Navy parlance.
Throughout the tense night, sealed in a compartment well below the water line, rumors began circulating among the crew. One involved fear that the fire could burn its way, deck by deck, until it went out the bottom of the ship.
“You didn’t know for sure what was going on,” he recalls. “You started to think that maybe this was it.”
All night, there were periodic announcements of the need for blood donors among the 5,000-member crew.
In morning, when the all-clear was given, the crew cheered. Then, with only water during the night, they were fed cheese sandwiches.
King, a resident of Hope Rescue Mission, works in the mission outlet store.
Diane Schenk, director of the outlet, said King is in the process of transitioning to a employment with an outside agency.
“Tim is a very responsible person and a hard worker,” Schenk said.
King confided that he’s not haunted by lingering images of the tragedy that befell the Nimitz.
But every year around May 26, it comes back to him.
“It’s not something you easily forget,” he says. “But more than anything, I want to make sure the crew members who lost their lives and those who were injured in service to their country are not forgotten.”
The Nimitz was commissioned in 1975. The ship is in its home port in Washington state undergoing upgrades after a lengthy deployment. The ship might be decommissioned in 2025 at its 50th anniversary, but its service might also be continued.
