January 10, 2004

'Midway Magic' finally home: Aircraft carrier to become floating naval museum

By Darrin Mortenson - NC Times.com Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO ---- For much of the 47 years it was in service, sailors and airmen aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway spoke proudly of "Midway Magic" ---- an almost indescribable elan and spirit that saw the ship's successive crews through mission after successful mission until it was retired in 1992.

Saturday that old Midway Magic came to life again and was shared by about 1,000 passengers as the Midway reached its permanent home at water's edge of downtown San Diego.

Between about 9 and 11 a.m. Saturday, the 1,000-foot-long, 58-year-old aircraft carrier made its final voyage across San Diego Harbor from North Island Naval Air Station to the Navy Pier at North Embarcadero, where it will soon become a floating naval museum.

The ship's spell captivated the passengers on the flight deck as two determined tugboats pulled and pushed the gray giant across the channel and into the slip between the Navy Pier and Tuna Harbor.

The passengers were mostly former crew members, retired sailors and airmen who donated money to the nonprofit group that brought the Midway to San Diego. They crowded the deck to watch the final mooring and relive voyages of long ago.

"I tell ya, it's like I'm 19 all over again," said Tom Kaufman, 52, of San Jose, who served aboard the Midway during the ship's first mission to Vietnam in 1969. "The memories are incredible. If you were onboard (in the past), this is a big deal."

Other old Navy hands beamed as the ship slowly pulled away from the North Island docks.

"It's incredible," said Mike Helms, 58, of Oakland, who stood behind red-white-and-blue bunting that bordered the deck. He gazed off the port bow as the Midway started to spin around toward the adjacent nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis.

"I spent three years of my life on here," he said, shaking his head and staring at the deck as if lost in reflection.

Helms said he flew to San Diego with his father-in-law just to take the Midway's final trip Saturday, and he had visited the Midway in the Port of Oakland several times in the last two months while it was being spruced up for its duty as San Diego's next big attraction.

The Midway was towed from Oakland on Dec. 31 and arrived at North Island on Monday.

Helms said he was pleased that the public would soon be able to tour the ship and learn about life at sea.

His father-in-law agreed.

"I think it's very appropriate for the city of San Diego to get a ship museum," said Fred Ulin, 81, who served aboard Navy destroyers during World War II and was once stationed in San Diego. "We've had a lot of ships in here over the years."

Ship has storied history

Since it was commissioned in 1945, more than 200,000 men and women had served aboard the Midway by the time it was retired in 1992.

Built during World War II at Hampton Roads, Va., it was the largest vessel in the U.S. fleet at the time and was the first ship in the world too big to transit the Panama Canal.

It was originally built with a straight deck on the hull of a cruiser, but was overhauled many times over the years to accommodate new weapons systems and aircraft.

It served three long combat deployments during the Vietnam War and its air wing helped evacuate more than 3,000 refugees when Saigon finally fell to communist forces April 29, 1975.

After Vietnam, the Midway responded to many international crises, including the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.

Stationed in Japan through much of the 1980s, it spent its last years as the flag ship of the armada that projected an American presence in the west Pacific and Indian Ocean during the twilight years of the Cold War.

The Midway last saw combat during the Gulf War in 1991, and was decommissioned shortly thereafter and sent to the Navy's West Coast graveyard at Bremerton, Wash.

Midway set for new duty

Alan Uke, the local businessman who hatched the idea of bringing the Midway to San Diego more than a decade ago, said the ship's arrival at its final berth was not as easy as it looked during the two-hour trip Saturday.

"We worked 12 years on this, but we're here!" he said, as the ship inched toward Navy Pier. About 200 people lined the boardwalk and an additional 100-some spectators crowded the naval memorial park along Tuna Harbor.

Uke said his group raised more than $14 million for the project and $250,000 more in the last few days alone.

He and other members of the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum board of directors have said the museum planned for Midway will evolve over time and offer new collections and exhibits to attract visitors again and again.

In addition to the three exhibits already onboard, an assortment of vintage naval aircraft will be displayed onboard, Uke said.

Retired Rear Adm. Riley Mixson, who skippered the Midway in Japan from 1985 to '87, said the ship's bridge will be fitted with plasma screens over the windows that will simulate the motion of the ship at sea and show aircraft taking off and landing as if it were happening right outside.

Mixson, who was the interim executive director for the museum group, said the museum will open in late April or May, and will officially launch with a grand opening celebration June 5. It will be the fifth aircraft carrier museum in the country, and the Navy's 47th floating ship museum.

Watching from the flight deck as the Midway docked at Navy Pier at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, board members Mixson and David Flohr patted each other firmly on the back.

"We made it," Flohr said.

"Yeah," said Mixson, "we made it."

January 05, 2004

Journey's end for the Midway – new duty: museum

By Jonathan Heller
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

As a full moon cast a soft, silvery light on its massive structure, the aircraft carrier Midway slipped ghostlike Monday into San Diego Bay.

People who had waited on Broadway Pier for up to six hours watched in silence as the 58-year-old warship was towed into its new home port, where it will take on a new mission as a floating museum and tourist attraction this spring.

"I wasn't going to leave until I saw her," said Ken Cohea, whose father, Baryon Cohea, served on the Midway in the 1960s. He died in April.

The 968-foot-long flattop, which was mothballed in 1992, was completing a six-day journey from Oakland, where it was spruced up for its new role.

Hundreds of people were lined up all day along the Embarcadero and Broadway Pier, and at Cabrillo National Monument at the tip of Point Loma, to greet the Midway . As the sun set, splashing orange and crimson across the bay, they had their cameras ready to capture the moment. But 10 minutes passed, then 20, and still no sight of the aircraft carrier.

Andy Campbell, 24, a downtown resident who is applying to become a Navy pilot, made four trips to the Embarcadero to try to get a glimpse of the carrier, but ultimately left after waiting until 30 minutes after sunset.

Those who hung around in the blustery dark had to settle for a glimpse of its silhouette.

"They're bringing the ship under a full moon; that's got to be good luck," said Russ Gatlin of Clearlake.

The designation "41" was just barely visible on its tower as the massive ship moved past, blotting out the lights of Point Loma behind it.

Hal Strong of Spring Valley brought his 8-year-old grandson, Austin, to witness the event. "It's like the Queen Mary coming in," said Strong, a retired Army helicopter mechanic.

The Midway was commissioned in 1945 and saw action during the Vietnam War and during the Persian Gulf War. Joe Ciokon, a retired Navy journalist from Poway, recalled crouching in a foxhole in Vietnam when the Midway's jets roared overhead on an air strike.

"Its air wing came over and saved our bacon," Ciokon said.

Alan Uke, founder of the nonprofit San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum, spent nearly a dozen years working to get the Midway for San Diego.

"I'm so excited, I'm tingling," Uke said. "It's like seeing a baby being born."

The Midway will be tied up at North Island Naval Air Station until Saturday while cranes lift refurbished carrier fighter jets aboard to be placed on exhibit.

On Saturday, the ship is scheduled to take its final voyage across the bay to Navy Pier, where it will take up its new duty station.

Riley Mixson, a retired rear admiral, will serve as executive director of the museum. He was skipper of the Midway from 1985 to 1987, when it was home-ported in Japan.

The ship, with a crew of 4,800, was "at the tip of the sword," the first in line to respond to a crisis in the Pacific or Indian oceans, he said.

"I could tell stories all day," Mixson said as he waited at the Broadway Pier for the Midway to arrive. "We were always at 24/7 readiness. Nothing was too hard. The impossible was just average for that crew."

Staff writers Helen Gao and Luis Monteagudo Jr. contributed to this report.

USS Midway arrives in San Diego!!!

Midway finally arrived in San Diego at 5:05 pm PST. Photos of this event can be found in the San Diego 2004 photo gallery.

January 05, 2004

USS Midway to Become San Diego Museum

By Seth Hettena, Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO - The storied aircraft carrier USS Midway is headed for a permanent home along San Diego Bay's Navy Pier as the nation's biggest museum devoted to carriers and naval aviation.

Tugs are pulling the 74,000-ton decommissioned warship from a naval graveyard off Washington state where the Midway has spent the past 10 years. The ship is due in a few days and, once outfitted with aircraft and other memorabilia, will become the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum, with a spring opening planned.

The Midway will be the nation's fifth and largest aircraft carrier museum. The others are the Intrepid in New York; the Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, S.C.; the Lexington in Corpus Christi, Texas; and the Hornet in Alameda, Calif.

Museum backers raised $8 million and spent more than a decade clearing regulatory hurdles.

"Someday, we'd like to be talked about in the same breath as Sea World and the zoo," said Scott McGaugh, a museum spokesman. "It's remarkable to think San Diego has almost a 100-year history with the Navy and yet has no naval aviation museum."

The Midway was the world's largest warship when it was launched in March 1945, less than six months before the Japanese surrender in World War II. The ship got its name from the Battle of Midway, the turning point of the Pacific war in which U.S. forces defeated a Japanese fleet in 1942 near the mid-Pacific atoll.

The Midway served three combat tours in Vietnam and launched warplanes over Iraq in 1991. The ship saw many firsts, including the first jet takeoff from a carrier and the dawn of naval missile warfare when a captured German V-2 rocket was launched from its deck.

The Midway was decommissioned in 1992 as the longest-serving carrier in U.S. Navy history. About 200,000 sailors and airmen called the Midway home over the years..

January 04, 2004

Aviation News by Pacific Flyer : USS Midway

Naval Aviators, history buffs and tourist officials were looking forward this month to the arrival in San Diego of what will become the largest floating naval museum in the world — the USS Midway, CV-41.

Subject to weather, the historic aircraft carrier was scheduled to depart Oakland Dec. 28 and arrive at North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego on or about January 2. It will have marked the culmination of an 11-year campaign to bring Midway to the city for outfitting as the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum.

Once at North Island, several historic aircraft were scheduled to be craned aboard. On Jan. 10th, VIPs, guests and dues-paying members of the museum (sponsors include everyone from giant corporations to former crewmembers) were to ride the Midway from North Island to her new berth on the North Embarcadero, close to the Star of India sailing ship.

She won't open as a tourist attraction until April, however, as workers continue their efforts to restore the 968-foot long ship's interior.

Commissioned Sept. 10, 1945 at Newport News, Va., the Midway played critical roles in the Vietnam war through the 1960s and '70s, as well as in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. She was decommissioned April 11, 1992 at her homeport, North Island, and towed to Bremerton, Wash. for storage.

Ten years of neglect had an impact, however, and volunteers have spent the better part of a year cleaning her interior once the okay was given to turn her into a floating museum. When the transfer was eventually completed, she was moved from Bremerton to Oakland for painting.

The man behind the restoration is 54-year -old retired Navy Cdr. Pete Clayton of El Cajon, Calif., who oversaw 30 workers in painting and polishing in preparation for her move south.

A veteran of 28 years in the sea service, Clayton has described the Midway as more than just a large boat with a runway on the roof. She's more like a monument or a "cathedral," he said, a place of honor where more than 200 men died in the 47 years of her service to the nation.

He also participated in the restoration of the USS Hornet, berthed at Alameda, Calif. and it was that expertise that resulted in his hiring by the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum. According to the San Diego Union, Clayton and his crew spent two months of often 12-16 hour, seven day weeks cleaning some 20 tons of debris from the Midway.

So far, a lot of money has been spent to make what at first seem impossible come to fruition, about $6.5 million. Some $2 million went for environmental studies and planning, $1 million for the mooring platforms at Navy Pier, $500,000 for painting and $300,000 for towing her from Bremerton to Oakland to San Diego.

Another half million will go for installing sprinkler and fire alarm systems after she arrives in San Diego. And, in case the tourists don't show as expected, $500,000 is being held in reserve for towing her away again.

But no one expects that half million to be used; in fact, the San Diego Port District (the Midway's landlord) is projecting annual revenues of some $750,000 in their pockets from taking four percent of food and beverage sales and parking fees. Museum officials said although they're trying to get more corporate funding, they still expect to open with $2 million in working capital.

As usual, not everyone was happy with the arrival of Midway and parking her on San Diego's tourist-driven waterfront. A group calling itself the Environmental Health Coalition is perhaps the leading voice, whose biggest objection seems to be that the Midway will take up room where more cruise ships could dock.

Only the local newspaper gives the coalition any media coverage and most everyone else ignores them, anxiously awaiting the awe-inspiring sight of a 20-story tall aircraft carrier berthed next to the scenic boardwalk at the end of Broadway in San Diego. It's going to be a sight to behold.

Aircraft carrier museums are also operating in New York City, Charleston, S.C. and Corpus Christi, Texas. Including the Hornet, they're all smaller than the Midway.

For more information on the Hornet, visit their website at www.uss-hornet.org. For the Midway, see www.midway.org.

January 02, 2004

Midway to arrive in San Diego on Monday

By: Darrin Mortenson - North County Times Staff Writer

Towed by a tugboat, the historic aircraft carrier USS Midway is scheduled to round Point Loma and cruise into San Diego Bay on Monday morning and dock later that day at the North Island Naval Air Station.

The nearly 1,000-foot-long flattop left the Port of Oakland on Wednesday, where it had been spruced up to become a floating naval museum along Navy Pier at San Diego's North Embarcadero.

The Midway was decommissioned in 1992, and before it arrived in Oakland, was berthed in Washington state.

According to the Web site run by the nonprofit group that established the museum, the Midway will take on an assortment of vintage military aircraft at the air station next week.

Then on Saturday, Jan. 10, members of the San Diego Aircraft Museum, donors of at least $1,000, and a host of local VIPs are scheduled to make the ship's final voyage from the naval air station across the bay to the Navy Pier.

The museum, one of only five aircraft carrier museums in the country, is scheduled to open in April.

Museum organizers have estimated that the ship will be a key San Diego tourist attraction, drawing as more than 400,000 visitors a year and pumping about $20 million a year into the local economy.

For updates on the progress of the Midway call the group's hotline at (619) 234-3497. For more information or to see live Internet-based footage of the ship, go to www.midway.org.

Ship To Become Floating Museum

SAN DIEGO -- In less than three days, the aircraft carrier USS Midway will pull into San Diego, Channel 10 News reported. The 1,000-foot ship will dock at North Island for some final additions, then it will cruise across the bay to its permanent home at Navy Pier.

The ship left Oakland, Calif., Dec. 31 and is scheduled to arrive in San Diego, Monday, Jan. 5.

Once the ship is stationed in San Diego, it will become a floating museum.

From the end of World War II through Operation Desert Storm, the aircraft carrier housed more than 200,000 servicemen and served the United States for more than 47 years.

The USS Midway is set to be permanently docked Saturday, Jan. 10.

To learn more about the ship's final journey, visit www.midway.org. For recorded updates, call (619) 234-3497.