The Midway Experience

If you are even remotely interested in Defence or more specifically air craft carriers, make every effort to get to see the USS Midway Museum at San Diego. We headed off first thing this morning to visit this absolute monach, it was worth every minute & we spent over 4 hrs on it.
The carrier was decommissioned in 1992, & opened as a museum in 2004. Incredible. You hear all the stories of how brothers served on the carrier but never got to see each other. Can quite understand.

This carrier was the overall naval command vessell for Desert Storm. Bit of trivia - it is over 1,004 ft long, 258 ft wide. It has 18 decks, & the flight deck is 4.02 acres. The USS Midway cost $90 million to build back in 1945, & over 225,000 men served on her. Total weight about 69,000 tons, 2,000 ft of anchor chain, 20 ton anchors. There were a number of retired Midway crew members who did tours, explained the catapulting system & the landing aircraft arresters. The crew had the system down to a fine art where they were landing incoming aircraft every 45 secs (or less). We also went on the Island Tour where we were taken to the bridge, the control tower, the chart room. It is called the Island because when planes were tryng to find the carrier they would look for the bridge, & this became known as the Island. It is also the only carrier that had a "sundeck" and this was used to maintain the radar tower and also allowed crew from below decks to get some sun when they were off duty. We also saw mess rooms for all ranks, & spoke to the guy who was in charge of all food purchasing, menus etc on a number of carries including the Midway. He said there was an average of 14,000 meals served per day. We also visited the kitchens, sick bay, chapel, laundry etc etc not to mention the working side of the carrier, the engine rooms, bomb prep areas etc. The machines running the thing defy belief.
The guy who did our Island tour was a pilot on a Huey (helicopter) used extensively in Vietnam. The tour was an absolute thrill, altho' I will say I can understand why the crew are so fit, my goodness, those steps are narrow, & very steep, and the airlocks you step over constantly going from section to section are over a foot high. Apparrently many many cut foreheads & bruised shins for the crews back then. (I did jump onto one of the enlisted guys bunks - & boy it was difficult - Ken had to help me on & as it was a middle bunk I had to roll off to get out).

Once we had finished, well after 2pm, we headed out of San Diego, taking the Campo Road Highway which skirted the Mexican border almost all the way. It was a brilliant road, consistently winding thru' steep mountains, then we were back to I8 driving thru' a couple of Indian reservations. At one stage had we continued on a few hundred feet we would have got to the Mexican border which we didn't want to do, so turned around and went back to where we had turned off. We passed masses of Border Patrols and depots, and could see the border fence between USA & Mexico quite clearly for some considerable distance. The temp was high & climbing, at one stage registering 119F, probably higher off the bike. The countryside appeared to be sand and nothing much else, other than the mountains which consisted of massive boulders.

By the time we got to the town of El Centro around 5pm we were ready to pull into any motel that offered breakfast, a resturant & that was it. The one we got is great, it has a small kitchenette, seperate bathroom etc - and for about half the price of most of the standard basic motels we've been staying at. We've had tea and are now ready to sleep. Even tho' it's only 10pm I don't think it will be too long.

The most beautiful HUGE statue - notice me next to her leg


Boarding USS Midway

In an enlisted crewman's bunk - not easy or big

So many wires, so little room - and Hello there! (below)

In the brig!

The rope is huge - see size in comparison to Ken's boot

The Radar Tower from the flight deck

Views from the Bridge

Hawkeye 11

Close to the Mexican Border

That's a semi that went over the side - ouch!