The Legend of the USS Midway: From Cold War Icon to San Diego Museum

Walking up to the Embarcadero in San Diego, the USS Midway dominates the skyline. It is an imposing and awe-inspiring example of military might; a huge weapon forged for a cataclysmic showdown that never came, instead becoming the backbone of American geopolitical might for the next half century.

Close your eyes. It’s 1943 and the air at the shipbuilding docks of Newport News are ringing with the pounding sounds of shipbuilders, their work giving voice to their tools. The world is on fire with World War II and they had just sent the carrier Franklin out to sea, freeing up Shipway 11 to begin their new project known only as Hull CVB-41. The design of this new carrier was a gamble, as up until this point carriers had only been built with wooden flight decks. With the new threat of kamikaze suicide planes in the Pacific, and the devastation such as plane could bring, burning and warping the boards… well the implications were catastrophic. 

Taking inspiration from the floating castle-like carriers of the British, with their armoured flight decks, impervious to bombs, American carrier building pivoted into a new era.

IN THE KNOW – The flight deck is 1001 ft in length (approx. 305 m ); not long enough for a traditional take off or landing. Here, the planes are launched by catapult, going from 0 to 170 mph in about 3 seconds. Landing is just as intense with planes making 130-150 mph approaches, aiming their planes’ tailhook for the arresting wires on the deck, with the planes being dragged to a high speed stop in a very short distance.

The Navy, in keeping with tradition and naming carriers after previous battles, wanted to honour the June 1942 turning point at Midway Atoll, the desperate battle where an underdog fleet broke the back of the imperial Japanese navy. Sounds simple right? Unfortunately there was already a smaller escort carrier sailing under the name Midway.

In flagrant defiance of deep-rooted, centuries old, superstitions among sailors, the Navy stripped the name from the smaller ship and bestowed it upon the favourite newcomer, and renaming the previous Midway the USS St. Lo. As if to reinforce the validity of superstitions, the USS St. Lo was struck by the war’s very first successful Japanese kamikaze strike in the Battle off Samar, just over two weeks later, on October 25, 1944. The strike triggered massive secondary explosions in the hangar and ammunition magazines, sinking the escort carrier, taking 113 sailors down with it, with another 30 dying later of their wounds. Nearby U.S. destroyers and destroyer escorts were able to rescue the other 746 sailors.

Almost 6 months later, back at Newport News, on a pleasant morning in March 1945 shipbuilders, following tradition and superstition to a tee, hoisted a broom to the masthead to give the carrier one last “clean sweep” to prove their work was complete. Barbara Cox Ripley, daughter of James M. Cox, former Governor of Ohio, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and future media mogul, stepped up to christen the new carrier with a bottle of Champagne. Sadly she wasn’t there simply due to her political connections, but rather as a Navy widow, who lost her husband, Naval aviator Bradford Williams Ripley II, having been killed in action. She represented the intense sacrifices made by military families at the time. 

Standing alongside Barbara, was the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8. On June 4, 1942, then Ensign George Gay flew a TBD Devastator torpedo bomber from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. His squadron located the Japanese fleet, and were forced to attack without American fighter protection. Within minutes all aircraft were shot down by Japanese Zero fighters. Ensign Gay successfully dropped his torpedo before his pane crashed into the sea, where he floated, wounded in the ocean for over 30 hours, concealing himself under a black rubber seat cushion and a deflated life raft. From the water, he had a front seat to history, watching American dive bombers arrive to counterattack and sink the Japanese aircraft carriers.

Under cover of night he was finally able to inflate his life raft to crawl inside and tend his wounds. The morning of June 5, 1942, the US Navy embarked on a search and rescue mission, finding only Gay drifting in the water, in rough shape, but alive. He became an instant celebrity, featured on the cover of Life magazine, and awarded both the Navy Cross, and the Purple Heart for his immense bravery. After serving once again on the front lines, flying combat missions in the Guadalcanal campaigns, he served as a flight instructor, and finally ended his career as a pilot for TWA.

Two very different symbols of the war on the USS Midway’s ceremonial stage. One reprensting the tragic sacrifice of the Homefront as a young, grieving military widow, and the other representing the miraculous survival, grit and triumph of the troops on the front lines. In a timeless naval ritual, Adm. Ainsworth accepted the ship from the builders and handed command over to Capt. Bolger. After reading his official orders aloud, Bolger turned to his executive officer, Cmdr. Rudolph Bauer, and gave the traditional command that brings a warship to life: “Set the watch.”

But history has its own plans. 

While the ship was being fitted out, Germany surrendered. Plans were drawn up for two massive, bloody landings on the Japanese home islands—Kyushu in November 1945, and Honshu in March 1946. But out in the New Mexico desert, a secret alternative was being tested. Looking to avert a catastrophic loss of life on the beaches of Japan, the Truman administration authorized the use of atomic weaponry. Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan accepted surrender terms on August 14, 1945. When the war ended, the Midway missed combat by exactly one single week.

While she missed WWII, she became an integral weapon of the Cold War. There was an argument made by the newly formed U.S. Air Force that new strategic atomic bombers made conventional navies obsolete. Midway disavowed them of this notion handily, serving as a floating laboratory, a real world testing ground for new and experimental technologies and tactics. With the breakneck pace of advancement in the nuclear and jet ages, the Midway became an integral cornerstone of the Navy.

Operation Frostbite, in 1946, saw Midway in the sub-Arctic to see if aircraft carriers could actually function in the extreme, sub-zero conditions. They tested to see how freezing temperatures, deck ice, and blizzards affected jet fuel, hydraulic catapults, and crew survival. 

In 1947, the Midway was once again the testing grounds for innovation with Operation Sandy, a U.S. Navy test that marked the first and only time a large V-2 rocket was launched from a moving ship at sea. Midway was chosen for its stable, armoured flight deck.

By 1949, she was launching heavy patrol bombers to prove to the Soviet Union that the Navy could deliver atomic weapons anywhere on the map.

For decades, Midway was ubiquitous; patrolling the Mediterranean to secure NATO’s southern flank; serving in the Vietnam War, not once, not twice, but three times. First in 1965 providing a deck to fly relentless bombing strikes against North Vietnam, and again, after undergoing a massive four year modernization overhaul, participated in an aggressive aerial campaign against North Vietnamese supply lines in 1972.

Finally, in 1975, she was the floating base for giant U.S. Air Force helicopters in the final days of the Vietnam War, and the fall of Saigon. The carrier helped to orchestrate the evacuation of US citizens, as well as at-risk South Vietnamese refugees, rescuing 3,073 should over a 30 hour period. 

As South Vietnamese military pilots desperately fled to the carrier in their own helicopters, the flight deck became severely overcrowded. To make room for incoming flights packed with families, the Midway’s captain, Lawrence Chambers, ordered $10 million worth of South Vietnamese Huey helicopters shoved directly into the ocean.

Decades later, when geopolitical winds shifted to the Middle East, she sailed into the Persian Gulf as the flagship for naval air power during Operation Desert Storm, orchestrating thousands of combat sorties without losing a single aircraft. Even her twilight mission was cinematic, rescuing thousands of stranded civilians from the Philippines after the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

By the time the anchors were finally dropped for good in 1992, the Midway had claimed the title of the longest-serving carrier of the 20th century. Today, she rests in the sun at San Diego, operating as a massive floating museum. She is no longer a weapon of war, but a steel cathedral dedicated to the millions of man-hours, the superstitious sailors, and the changing global tides that defined her near half-century at sea.

We spent the afternoon exploring this massive oceanic bulwark, climbing in and our of the cockpits of various planes and helicopters on the massive flight deck; roaming the labyrinthine corridors of the island, and exploring the sailors quarters. Admission was $41 each, and included the audio tour. If you find yourself in San Diego, this is well worth your time and effort!