California Gold: The USS Midway in San Diego

Approaching the USS Midway

Text and photos by Jason McKenney.

The cabins are narrow, cramped, unforgiving. You can imagine life inside this giant beast out on the open seas for months on end, the young men inside filled with nervous energy and the boredom of routine, on the alert for any possible sign of combat. And with combat comes death.

Everyone knows San Diego is a military town, primarily Navy. Camp Pendleton sits to the north of the city, and several Navy bases are located around the bay. In addition is the USS Midway, America's longest serving aircraft carrier of 20th century. It served the entire length of the Cold War, Vietnam, and through Desert Storm. It was finally retired in 1992 and has since become an amazing museum of air and sea combat history.

TBM-3E Avenger in the hangar

A tour leads you through the tiny barracks and narrow tunnels of the enormous ship. The feeling is claustrophobic, suffocating. You know it would have been even worse when crammed with hundreds of other sailors living in the same space. One tunnel leads you out into a hangar. A steel roof looms high overhead providing room for the containment of a variety of aircraft. There are planes here used during many of America's recent conflicts. Some from the Korean War, others from Vietnam. Many of these planes were manned decades earlier by men younger than yourself, scared to death, but devout in their courage to fight. The energy of those experiences still resonates in the Midway.

On the flight deck

Walking through the hangar door, you step out into the bright sunshine of the flight deck. More fighter jets and attack helicopters rest along the edge like giant sentinels, watching your every move. The warm San Diego sunshine feels good on your face, but this magnificent boat has been through much worse. It has seen its share of blood and rain, horror and victory. The fruits of those battles are being shared today. Today is a day of peace and enjoyment on the deck. You see families milling about, inspecting the planes, sharing stories, making lunch plans, and enjoying their lives in a society defended by so many.

F9F-8P Cougar

The Midway is anchored (as one more knowledgeable reader informed me, the correct status is moored) in the North San Diego Bay right next to beautiful downtown SD. A visit to this floating time capsule gives landlubber civilians like myself, people who have never spent a day in harms way, a chance to walk among the giants of military machinery: helicopters, jets, and fighter planes armed with missiles and rocket launchers and indescribable experiences. It's an inspiring thing.

This is the same deck from which a South Vietnamese Air Force UH-1H helicopter was pushed overboard to make room for Major Buang to land his Cessna O-1 during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975. You've seen that video footage. Amazing to think those service men stood right here. That Major Buang's tiny plan landed over there.

Airshow out over the bay

Out over the water an airshow is underway. Two small biplanes zip along the surface of the bay and speed through giant inflated cones, doing loopty-loops, trails of blue haze are left in their wake. Their tiny motors sound like chainsaws in the distance.  Looking out over the deck rail, you see the Unconditional Surrender statue which resembles the famous photo by Victor Jorgensen of a sailor kissing a nurse taken during the V-J Day celebration in Times Square, just a few days before construction began on the Midway.

San Diego is a wonderful excursion from the rest of California. Its more laid back than Orange County, warmer than LA, and has nicer people than you'll even find in the South. San Diego's Little Italy is delicious, Old Town is historic, and the Gaslamp Quarter is loads of fun. But none of those places quite compares to the Midway.

Contrasting modern San Diego with the world those soldiers were faced with in the 60s, when the distant war in Vietnam had been raging for years, gives some perspective. On June 17, 1965, aviators of Midway's Attack Carrier Wing 2, VF-21 downed the first two MiGs credited to U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. On June 20, pilots from VA-25, flying A-1H Skyraiders, scored a kill on the fifth MiG of the war. And on January 12 1973, a combat aircraft from Midway made the last air-to-air kill

F9F-5 Panther used in Korea

of the Vietnam War.

It was a much different scene from today. You keep that in mind as you leave the flight deck, humbled by the experience.

A much different scene on the Midway than 40 years earlier.

Heavy artillary on the side of the Huey

UH-1B Huey

HSS-1 Seabat with the red nose and a SH-2F Seasprite

RA-5C Vigilante

Pleasure boats fill the bay on a warm, clear day.

San Diego financial district just across the street from the Navy Pier.

Another shot of San Diego taken from the deck of a cruise ship.

Unconditional Surrender Statue

Wide view of the USS Midway