San Diego 9/12: USS Midway

USS Midway Tour - Tuesday, September 12th
John & Sue were visiting local relatives that day and did not join us. Per the timestamp on my photos, Margaret, Frank, and I boarded the USS Midway 11:19 and departed 3:32, meaning we were there about 4 hours. At the entrance I captured Margaret and Frank as they were climbing aboard; the huge bell at the entrance impressed me.

Since the USS Midway has several decks, we asked a docent as we entered what he recommended as the best place to start. He suggested the middle level where we entered, which was the hangar deck, and that we do the Forward Loop tour. The Forward Loop was a circuitous path the took us past various commanding areas of the ship as well as residential rooms of the sailors. There were free audio tours with headphones to activate at certain spots along the way. Truthfully, I found this part the least interesting area of the ship. I guess I have seen so many Hollywood-made movies that there was nothing significantly different to impress me. Bunk beds and other berths were mundane. Since the USS Midway had been decommissioned in 1992, the technology displayed was of that era and not recent. I did learn some new terminology and regions of ship use. The areas viewed in the forward loop were the following:

• Staterooms
• Ready rooms
• Helicopter Exhibit
• CAG - Carrier Air Group
• CIC - Combat Information Center
• Fo'c'sLe - where the anchor chains are stored on the USS Midway
• Berthing
• Geedunk -  snack foods, such as candy and chips, as well as the place they're sold

We exited the forward loop tour near the Battle of Midway Theatre and stayed to watch the movie Voices of Midway. This 15 minute immersive film tells the story of one of the most important naval battles of WWII. The battle is relived through the eyes and voices of the heroes that bravely took part in this historic episode of American history. I am not a fan of war documentaries and even I thought it was well worth watching. The trailer for the movie can be seen at https://www.midway.org/exhibits-activities/activities/battle-of-midway-theater/. 

We had barely scratched the surface of investigating the other decks and proceeded up to the flight deck. A towering structure called the Island rose from mid flight deck. We skipped the highly rated Island Tour, having listened to the warning that there were narrow ladders to climb, twisty passages to negotiate, and that those afraid of heights should forgo the tour. Children could go on the tour but a parent needed to be behind them on any ladder portions. The Island is still majestic looking from the outside and I had Frank pose with it in the background.

Even though we punted the Island tour on the flight deck, we saw the best parts of the USS Midway visit, the catapult and trap talks. The docent at the bow where the planes are take off (catapult) and the docent at the stern where the planes land (trap) were excellent; do not miss either presentation. They were the highlight of our visit.

Learn how aircraft landed and took off from carrier decks from our volunteer Docents who have actually done it! Launching off and landing on an aircraft carrier is one the most dangerous and exhilarating experiences for a Navy pilot. Our expert Docents, many of them former Navy pilots themselves, explain the difficult process of taking off (catapult) and landing (trap) on the short flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

As we continued to walk along the flight deck we observed a myriad of different aircraft.

We learned that each role in the process of launching and landing fighter planes was color coded so at a single glance all personnel would know whose job it was to do what. Per Wikipedia

Blueshirts move, chock, and chain aircraft at the direction of yellowshirts. Plane captains wear brown and are responsible for preparing/inspecting aircraft for flight. Green shirts are generally aircraft or equipment maintenance personnel. Squadron aircraft mechanics wear green shirts. Fuel personnel wear purple and are affectionately known as "grapes". Aviation ordnance personnel ("ordies") wear red. Senior medical officers and flight surgeons wear white with Red Cross emblems.

Aircraft directors are known as yellow shirts and responsible for the safe movement of aircraft on the flight deck and in the hangar bay.

We'd been so absorbed in looking and learning that the time was a few minute before 3:00 pm and we had yet to have lunch. A stop-off in the rest room amused me that even the technologically advanced faucets looked like airplanes to me. They dispensed water from below and blasted drying air from the side "wings"

The back of each stall door contained a cartoon with Midway facts. I checked out each stall to collect and collate the information.

• Midway's galley served 13,000 meals a day
• Nearly 4,800 pounds of clothing were washed every 12 hours in the ship's laundry.
• It took approximately 4 million gallons of paint to give Midway a "new coat"
• On the Midway the coffee urn was considered the most important piece of equipment on the ship. Crewmen consumed over 10,000 cups of coffee each day.

We opened the door to the cafe to get some lunch at 2:59 and were told they closed at 3:00. We squeezed through none the less and grabbed some ready made food options off shelves and refrigerator cases. Margaret and I each had a huge delicious ice cold fruit cup. We had thick slices of pound cake that were so moist and flavorful that they were serious contenders for our best desserts on the entire San Diego trip. We sat outdoors at some dining tables and surveyed the shoreline and skyline as we gazed over the parking lot on the port side of the USS Midway.

Had we looked out from the starboard side of the USS Midway we would have seen the statue titled Unconditional Surrender / Embracing Peace modeled after the iconic 1945 Alfred Eisenstaedt photo V-J Day in Times Square that Life magazine published with the caption "In New York's Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers".

We left about a half hour later, realizing were were tired but happy with as much as we'd accomplished during our tour. We gave ourselves permission to go ashore.

On our Uber ride back, we drove by another interesting sculpture at the corner of Pacific Highway and Broadway. It is named Pacific Soul and the artist is world-renown artist Jaume Plensa. Per https://theresandiego.com/pacific-gate-by-bosa/

Approximately 25 feet tall, Pacific Soul is Plensa’s most ambitious sculpture in California to date. Composed of the characters from eight different alphabets including Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Hindi, Pacific Soul draws its inspiration from the roots of rainforest trees, as the sculpture grows from organic, wrapping, root-like ribbons which create the shape of the human body made from language.

In a Cool San Diego Sites article I learned the sculpture will be lit at night from below, and that people will be able to walk through it. In addition I found really interesting pictures of its installation at https://coolsandiegosights.com/2018/01/24/pacific-soul-by-jaume-plensa-rises-in-san-diego/

Tuesday night we had leftovers for dinner, supplemented by pizza for those whose leftovers were minimal. We started the new The Beach Hut puzzle, realizing we had only three nights to complete it.