I have never really figured out if they deliberately didn't tell me about the gooney birds or if somehow they all knew about them and thought everyone else did, too. By the time we all walked out of the hangar and saw hundreds of the very large white but blank-winged birds standing around, flying around, sitting around on nests, waddling around, squawking, whistling, clacking, neighing, I had flown on four different planes, sat around two different airports and slept a very short while in the visiting officer quarters of two air force bases. It was about fifty-three hours since we had been told we were heading out and about thirty-three hours since we had left home on Florida's east central coast.
The Gooney Birds (Laysan Albatross)
On the leg of the trip from California to Hawaii I had been invited up onto the flight deck of the C-141 packed with all of us and all of our gear. Nevertheless, we were only about a third of the folks heading there to the middle of the Pacific, to join the goonie birds. And the pilots let me fly the huge plane for a while, dodging the towers of cumulus clouds in stacks over the briny drink which seemed to have as its purpose mostly just that cloud formation, at least from the surface up to the top of the atmosphere.
And that was fun.
Otherwise we sat on webbed benches along the edges of the fuselage because everything we needed was packed into the middle of the aircraft. Even a jeep.
But also not only the operational stuff we needed but all our personal stuff. One of the guys explained to me that if we didn't bring it with us we weren't likely to be able to get it. The "ship's store" would not have that much.
NAS Midway stationery.
Stamps.
Laundry detergent.
NAS Midway t-shirts and baseball caps.
Navy rank and insignia, work shirts and dress shirts. A few.
Snacks.
Pop.
Some books.
After leaving Hawaii and flying for hours and hours more over that cumulus cloud-producing blue on a lovely day all of a sudden the pilot called back on the PA to look out the starboard side of the aircraft and wow!
There was a sure-enough island with that incredible turquoise color in the shallows along the white beaches in the middle. Two runways at right angles to one another. A green almost triangular main island and a strip of another island across the top of the center of the volcano.
Midway Atoll: Also known as Midway Island or Midway Islands, Hawaiian: Pihemanu is a 2.4 square mile (6.2 km²) atoll located in the North Pacific Ocean (near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago) at 28°12'N 177°21'WCoordinates: 28°12'N 177°21'W, about one-third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo. It is less than 140 nautical miles east of the International Date Line, about 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 km) west of San Francisco and 2,200 nautical miles (4,100 km) east of Tokyo. It consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef and several sand islets. The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide habitat for hundreds of thousands of seabirds. Island sizes are:
Sand Island 1,200 acres / 486 hectares
Eastern Island 334 acres / 135 hectares
Spit Island 6 acres / 2 hectare
Midway is exactly . . .
Something about the swish of the ocean on a meditation tape tonight triggered the memories.
The open field between the hangar and the stands of iron wood trees had one white gravel road running parallel to the hangar and a school bus painted medium gray driven by a Navy kid was waiting for us.
It was December of 1981, as they say -- a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
The main island has the woods, the roads, the hangar, the golf course, the old Pan Am hotel, the ghost buildings for crew and families and the few usable buildings for quarters, for the chow hall, for the gymnasium and the racket ball courts, for the officer's club, the NCO club, for the commander's house where President Truman
U.S. Marine 1Lt George H. Cannon who was killed by weapons from a Japanese bomber or fighter plane flying back to the aircraft carriers from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Navy Chapel was named after him. This is the citation for his posthumous award of a Medal of Honor:
"7 December 1941 - *CANNON, GEORGE HAM, First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps. Citation: For distinguished conduct in the line of his profession, extraordinary courage and disregard of his own condition during the bombardment of Sand Island, Midway Islands, by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. 1st Lt. Cannon, Battery Commander of Battery H, 6th Defense Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, U.S. Marine Corps, was at his command post when he was mortally wounded by enemy shellfire. He refused to be evacuated from his post until after his men who had been wounded by the same shell were evacuated, and directed the reorganization of his command post until forcibly removed. As a result of his utter disregard of his own condition he died from loss of blood."
."George H Cannon, 1st Lt USMC
When I ran on the beach or walked all the way around the island during our time of waiting, from time to time there was aircraft debris. But also beached seals from time to time. And the guys often went out looking for fish balls.
I thought they were kidding, because you never could tell what they meant by balls, But they were hand-blown glass balls that had held up fishing nets. I never found one myself, but one of my friends gave me one of his.
Sometime I should really try to organize this and tell the whole story in more detail.
I feel led to write about it from time to time.
The second time I spent about six weeks on Midway was in the summer of 1982, which is probably why I am thinking of it now.
I guess.
It's one of those places I often visit in my dreams and wouldn't mind seeing again . . . but even more would love to see the guys.
MIdway Island Web Site
The Gooney Birds (Laysan Albatross)
On the leg of the trip from California to Hawaii I had been invited up onto the flight deck of the C-141 packed with all of us and all of our gear. Nevertheless, we were only about a third of the folks heading there to the middle of the Pacific, to join the goonie birds. And the pilots let me fly the huge plane for a while, dodging the towers of cumulus clouds in stacks over the briny drink which seemed to have as its purpose mostly just that cloud formation, at least from the surface up to the top of the atmosphere.
And that was fun.
Otherwise we sat on webbed benches along the edges of the fuselage because everything we needed was packed into the middle of the aircraft. Even a jeep.
But also not only the operational stuff we needed but all our personal stuff. One of the guys explained to me that if we didn't bring it with us we weren't likely to be able to get it. The "ship's store" would not have that much.
NAS Midway stationery.
Stamps.
Laundry detergent.
NAS Midway t-shirts and baseball caps.
Navy rank and insignia, work shirts and dress shirts. A few.
Snacks.
Pop.
Some books.
After leaving Hawaii and flying for hours and hours more over that cumulus cloud-producing blue on a lovely day all of a sudden the pilot called back on the PA to look out the starboard side of the aircraft and wow!
There was a sure-enough island with that incredible turquoise color in the shallows along the white beaches in the middle. Two runways at right angles to one another. A green almost triangular main island and a strip of another island across the top of the center of the volcano.
Midway Atoll: Also known as Midway Island or Midway Islands, Hawaiian: Pihemanu is a 2.4 square mile (6.2 km²) atoll located in the North Pacific Ocean (near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago) at 28°12'N 177°21'WCoordinates: 28°12'N 177°21'W, about one-third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo. It is less than 140 nautical miles east of the International Date Line, about 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 km) west of San Francisco and 2,200 nautical miles (4,100 km) east of Tokyo. It consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef and several sand islets. The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide habitat for hundreds of thousands of seabirds. Island sizes are:
Sand Island 1,200 acres / 486 hectares
Eastern Island 334 acres / 135 hectares
Spit Island 6 acres / 2 hectare
Midway is exactly . . .
Something about the swish of the ocean on a meditation tape tonight triggered the memories.
The open field between the hangar and the stands of iron wood trees had one white gravel road running parallel to the hangar and a school bus painted medium gray driven by a Navy kid was waiting for us.
It was December of 1981, as they say -- a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
The main island has the woods, the roads, the hangar, the golf course, the old Pan Am hotel, the ghost buildings for crew and families and the few usable buildings for quarters, for the chow hall, for the gymnasium and the racket ball courts, for the officer's club, the NCO club, for the commander's house where President Truman
U.S. Marine 1Lt George H. Cannon who was killed by weapons from a Japanese bomber or fighter plane flying back to the aircraft carriers from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Navy Chapel was named after him. This is the citation for his posthumous award of a Medal of Honor:
"7 December 1941 - *CANNON, GEORGE HAM, First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps. Citation: For distinguished conduct in the line of his profession, extraordinary courage and disregard of his own condition during the bombardment of Sand Island, Midway Islands, by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941. 1st Lt. Cannon, Battery Commander of Battery H, 6th Defense Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, U.S. Marine Corps, was at his command post when he was mortally wounded by enemy shellfire. He refused to be evacuated from his post until after his men who had been wounded by the same shell were evacuated, and directed the reorganization of his command post until forcibly removed. As a result of his utter disregard of his own condition he died from loss of blood."
."George H Cannon, 1st Lt USMC
When I ran on the beach or walked all the way around the island during our time of waiting, from time to time there was aircraft debris. But also beached seals from time to time. And the guys often went out looking for fish balls.
I thought they were kidding, because you never could tell what they meant by balls, But they were hand-blown glass balls that had held up fishing nets. I never found one myself, but one of my friends gave me one of his.
Sometime I should really try to organize this and tell the whole story in more detail.
I feel led to write about it from time to time.
The second time I spent about six weeks on Midway was in the summer of 1982, which is probably why I am thinking of it now.
I guess.
It's one of those places I often visit in my dreams and wouldn't mind seeing again . . . but even more would love to see the guys.
MIdway Island Web Site
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