USS Midway, F-4 Phantom

[WSS]

Where: Hong Kong, When: Jan. or Feb. 1964, What: Shock and awe. Here I was 19 years young, right out of "A" School Great Lakes Ill., first duty station. Just got off the liberty boat up the port side through the passage way that leads to the mess deck and out into the hanger bay. Wow was I ever awe struck, state of the art F-4 Phantom right in front of my face. The scale of everything on front of me was impressive. To this day this is one of the best and first memories of the USS Midway.

[Eagle3]

My first look at the ship was in Yoko, 15 June 1981. I remember the taxi dropping me off near the aft brow and I just stared at it for a few seconds before moving. I was more worried about screwing up than getting lost. I thought for sure I'd get to the quarter and completely blow requesting to come aboard. :laugh:

When I got aboard I was wondering if I could get across hangar bay 2 without getting killed. The one thing that struck me immediately and I remember it to this day was all the Japanese workers that were repairing this and working on that. They were everywhere. The rumor I remember was that the ship could never return to the states for repair because all the blue prints were in kanji. ;)

[Gary94]

I remember I had to go through a ton of crap to find her when I was trying to report on board. My orders said to report to USS Midway Alameda Ca. Ok fine, got to NAS Alameda and no Midway. The only carrier there was the USS Hancock. They said that Midway was across the bay at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Take a cab to Oakland, get on a bus to San Francisco. Some how managed to find a bus stop that went to Hunters Point. Waited for that bus, standing there in my dress whites try to get on the bus when a cook from Midway grabs me and says that's the wrong bus. It would have dropped me off in the worst part of town in the world. This cook steers me in the right direction and I finally get on board. My first thought was "God,I'm going to be on this thing?"

[nipon ginko]

Where: Hong Kong, When: Jan. or Feb. 1964, What: Shock and awe. Here I was 19 years young, right out of "A" School Great Lakes Ill., first duty station. Just got off the liberty boat up the port side through the passage way that leads to the mess deck and out into the hanger bay. Wow was I ever awe struck, state of the art F-4 Phantom right in front of my face. The scale of everything on front of me was impressive. To this day this is one of the best and first memories of the USS Midway.

I saw an F4 launched in port(yoko) quite a sight. Nipon Ginko