Cool Navy Photo: U.S. Navy Sailors/Firefighters

In the above photo sailors fight a fire during a shipboard firefighting course at Fleet Training Center on Naval Base San Diego on March 14th.

The Fleet Training Center trains more than 28,000 Sailors a year and administers 171 different courses, including firefighting, damage control, torpedo training, radio and communications training.

The photo brings back memories as I graduated from two firefighting courses at the training center in San Diego way back in 1970 when I was a teenage sailor stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

After the devastating fire aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in 1967, in which 134 sailors were killed, all carrier sailors were sent to firefighting schools.

Afer all, when a ship catches fire at sea, one can't call the fire department - we were the fire department.

The above U.S. Navy photo was taken by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Benjamin Crossley.

You can click on the photo to enlarge.

Note: I wrote briefly about my time at the firefighting school in my Crime Beat column on Joseph Wambaugh's Fire Lover, a true crime book about a firefighter/arsonist.

You can read the column via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/search?q=Fire+Monster