www.dallasnews.com, June 2008

Carrier USS Midway docked as museum in San Diego

SAN DIEGO – Larry Sullivant remembers the deafening roar, the frenetic fury, the mind-blowing magic that enveloped the flight deck of the USS Midway when he served as an aviation electrician aboard the carrier from 1972 to '74.

He remembers the oppressive weight of heat and humidity that came with being sandwiched in steel as the ship rolled "like the belly of a snake" on the South China Sea.

He recalls the exhaustion of working 16-hour shifts. And he remembers that back then nobody ever said, "Thank you."They say it now. "That's the biggest thing," Mr. Sullivant said. "Man, 'thank you' never, ever happened when I was on active duty."

Mr. Sullivant is among about 200 volunteer docents who mingle with visitors who tour the Midway, docked at Navy Pier in San Diego. Like Mr. Sullivant, many once served aboard the carrier. Their stories bring the ship to life.

The USS Midway, which sailed for nine U.S. presidents over 47 years, was the longest-serving aircraft carrier in U.S. history. The massive ship was decommissioned in San Diego in 1992, but it didn't retire. To win use of the Midway as a nonprofit floating museum, San Diegans raised more than $8 million from 3,000 donors, landed three dozen permits from a bevy of governmental authorities and submitted more than 3,000 pages of plans and documents to the Navy, which retains ownership of the carrier.

One of 175 historic Navy ships that have morphed into museums and welcome visitors, the Midway is docked at the heart of San Diego's downtown embarcadero. The self-guided audio tour, included with the price of admission, has 60 stops; 26 aircraft are displayed – ranging from the SBD "Dauntless" dive bomber that won the battle of Midway in 1942 to the F-18 Hornet of 1991's Operation Desert Storm.

Wearing headphones, visitors ramble the carrier's 2,000 compartments listening to stories often narrated by the men who once served at those stations. They learn that the Midway was a floating city: 1,001 feet long, 258 feet wide, with an all-male population of 4,500. The average age of residents was 19.

Every man in the city had a job. There were barbers, butchers, bakers and boilermakers. The city had television and radio stations, restaurants, a laundry and dry cleaning center, a desalination plant, a hospital, a pharmacy, a post office and a jail, where a plaque reminded guards that "bread and water" was all that certain inmates were to be fed.

Charlie Kiefer, a volunteer docent who ran the Midway's two enlisted men's galleys in 1971-72, tells visitors another side of the story: "We served 10 tons of cooked food a day. Our two bake shops produced 1,000 to 1,500 loaves of bread a day, plus hamburger and hot dog buns, cakes, cookies, pies and doughnuts – all from scratch."

Although only about 200 men aboard the Midway were pilots, this floating city became best known for its airport, where young jet jockeys landed at 150 mph on a steel patch the size of a tennis court.

"When that cable caught you, your eyeballs popped out of your head. You knew you'd been stopped," said Ken Van Wormer, a volunteer docent who leads visitors up into "the island," where the bridge is housed and primary flight control operations were conducted.

"They called it a ballet up here on the flight deck," said 77-year-old Robert Keetch. "It looked more like a madhouse to me." Mr. Keetch was a boilermaker on the Midway in 1967. "I come now to escape my wife's 'honey-do' list," he said. "It's pretty great being here. Guests really enjoy it. A lot of them thank us, not just for what we're doing now but for what we did back then. It really pumps you up."

There's little behind glass on the Midway; visitors are encouraged to touch, to interact. They can climb into the cockpit of a Russian MiG, sit in the seat once occupied by the "Pri-Fli" deck boss, ride flight simulators and check out underwear in an industrial-size dryer in the ship's laundry.

In the Admiral's War Room, they hear pilot communications recorded when the Midway launched the first airstrikes of Desert Storm; they see the CNN feed that crewmen watched that night: John Holliman and Peter Arnett reporting live from Baghdad. Life-size mannequins give places an added sense of reality.

But the men who once served aboard ship offer the best reality: "The last plane to land during the evacuation of Vietnam – the South Vietnamese pilot threw a note down," recalled Vic Vydra, a radio-TV technician in the 1970s. That note, tied to an orange, begged that deck space be cleared before the pilot's Cessna O-1 Bird Dog ran out of fuel. The crew shoved aside helicopters, and Maj. Bung-Ly successfully landed his plane, with no tail hook.

"The pilot had his five children in the plane's luggage compartment," Mr. Vydra said. "When we got those kids out, the whole entire flight deck crew erupted in cheers."

That Cessna is expected to be added to the Midway's aircraft collection next spring, and Bung-Ly's children will be invited for the ceremony.

Want to discover what life was really like for the 225,000 men who have served aboard the USS Midway? Join a family overnight stay aboard the carrier. Participants sleep in the same narrow bunks where sailors slept; they eat dinner and breakfast in the enlisted men's mess hall. Activities include special tours, a scavenger hunt and a late-night movie. Reveille is at 6:30 a.m. Participants must be at least 5 years old. Occupancy is limited to 100. Cost is $125 per person.

The USS Midway Museum is tied alongside Navy Pier on downtown San Diego's embarcadero. The retired aircraft carrier is open from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. daily, except Christmas and Thanksgiving. Admission, which includes a self-guided audio tour, costs $17 for adults, $13 for students and those 62 and older, $10 for retired military, $9 for ages 6-17. Active-duty military and children 5 and younger get in free. Plan on at least four hours to tour the carrier.

Details: 619-544-9600, www.midway.org

Alison DaRosa

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