March, 2008
by Jane Shipman, Connecticut CMG
San Diego, CA December 7, 2007 (anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor)
The last day of our CMG 2007 Conference in San Diego was made even more memorable by a trip to the USS Midway Aircraft carrier, a ship that had been in service for 47 years. Several of us agreed to meet after our Friday morning sessions to walk over to the USS Midway which is now a floating museum permanently anchored in San Diego Harbor.
A brief history of the USS Midway includes the following facts:
September 10, 1945
Commissioned as the first ship too large for the Panama Canal, it would be the largest ship in the world for 10 years.
March 1946
The Midway was the first carrier to launch aircraft above the Arctic Circle and operate extensively with a helicopter on board. The first jet takeoff from a carrier was an FR-1 Fireball.
Sept. 6, 1947
The Midway launched the first missile from a ship, a captured German V-2 rocket, during an experiment called Operation Sandy.
June 13, 1963
The Midway conducted the first fully automated "hands-off" landing with production equipment, using technology later used in the space program.
June 17, 1965
The Midway had the first confirmed downing of a MiG in the Vietnam War.
January 17, 1991
Aircraft from the USS Midway were the first to launch in Desert Storm. The carrier out performed all other American carriers and was the only carrier not to lose an aircraft.
April 11, 1992
The Midway was decommissioned at North Island Naval Air Station (San Diego).
A "City at Sea", the carrier has a displacement of 45,000 tons, a length of 968 feet, a crew of 4,500 and 200 miles of piping and 3,000 miles of copper conductor, ship fuel capacity of 2.23 million gallons and jet fuel capacity of 1.24 million gallons and produced 240,000 gallons of desalinized water daily.
This isn't just a floating museum with exhibits, signs and videos. US Navy veterans are on hand every day to explain the exhibits, talk about life at sea and answer questions often times standing next to the type of aircraft they flew.
I had the privilege to speak with a WWII veteran who was there at Pearl Harbor on December 7th and realized that soon those who served will be gone from our midst. He had as much enthusiasm and interest in the present and the future as in the past and it touched my heart to hear him.
I caught up with Denise Kalm and her partner Michael Goldstein, a former Navy pilot who served on the USS Forrestal. They were on the Midway carrier deck where a Navy pilot veteran was describing how to land the jets and the exactitude required to land safely, stopping the aircraft by using the tail hook, moving off the flight deck for refueling and taking off again. The arrival rate between aircraft landing during a mission was less than 2 minutes if everything went according to plan. The angle of approach, touch down, lining up with lighted "meatball" to find this "postage stamp landing pad" in an ocean of blue. Well, I marveled. And it got better as Mike and the other Navy pilot swapped commentary about night time landings when you had to rely completely on instrumentation and lights and not on vision because everything was black. And when they learned how to fly, there weren't the computer program flight simulators they have today. So they had to practice with blindfolds to know the location of each and every knob and switch. They both agreed that night landings while a requirement of their jobs were "kinda scary" in retrospect.
Bob Wackelin of Connecticut CMG and I checked out a Huey helicopter on the deck. Bob served in the Army. Margaret Greenberg was our photographer and captured some great shots. Jeff and Judy Buzen caught up with us in the War room. The computers looked like a very different generation, but it occurred to me that while technology changes, the activities of ensuring peak performance and providing capacity and measuring against the plan are skills that will always be necessary to accomplish any mission.
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It was just a short walk from the hotel which can be seen in the center of the picture just above the nose of the aircraft. |
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This is where we came in on the hangar deck. |
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The Captain, L.L. Ernst was the last captain before the Midway became a museum. The number 41 is the number used to identify it from the air. There was a huge neon sign to make the Midway easy to find. |
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On the hangar deck, there was a veteran talking about the ship. Perhaps, this is what Jane saw. |
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Because of the 66th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a ceremony on the hangar deck. |
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Mike and this guy had a great discussion on how planes had to work to land on the deck. We’re in the area called "the trap". |
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Our lecturer is explaining how the flight deck worked. |
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Here he points out the difficulty of landing, how the approach had to be just so and even a rough seas approach. |
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Some of the Connecticut delegation inspecting the planes. |
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The number of planes and aircraft on the flight deck was amazing. |
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This statue is in a small park immediately next to the Midway. |