Just this side of Tomorrow
Midway Island Ham Radio QSL Cards – Midway Island’s MARS Shack was an active place for many years at Midway. Manned by Ham radio operators who would assist military personnel with an inexpensive method to call home. Many sailor made phone patches to family, ending each sentence with the statement “Over”. Continue reading “Midway Island Ham Radio QSL Cards”
Below are some pages out of a Welcome to Midway Island brochure. Named “New Midwayites – Welcome to Midway”, the brochure is missing one page from the bird ID section and the section about “Special Information to Submariners” was never included. It’s likely that the brochure was made prior to the sub base shutdown and issued afterward so that section was omitted. Continue reading “New Midwayites – Welcome to Midway Brochure”
MEMORIES OF MIDWAY ISLAND By CDR. Richard G. Rieken, USN Ret.
(As told to his wife Edie in 1997)
After a seven-month training cruise on the USS HORNET CVS-12 through WestPac to China, Japan and the Philippines, Dick’s next assignment took him to Midway Island for a year, ‘way out on the northwest end of the Hawaiian string, over a thousand miles from Honolulu. Continue reading “Memories of Midway Island By CDR. Richard G. Rieken, USN Ret.”
During the U.S. Navy’s tenure at Midway Island many different departments, missions, or even clubs made patches to represent and to commemorate them. Below is a gallery of just a few from that era.
Gooney Bird Monument – 1972
The year was 1972 and Midway Island had just created the Battle of Midway Memorial Park. The park displayed a panoramic mural depicting the battle, two huge guns that were once stationed at emplacements built to defend the island against a Japanese attack during World War II and several memorial plaques commemorating the historical significance of the island and to the men who died fighting to defend it. But the centerpiece would end up being a 11-foot tall “Mahogany Albatross”, a wooden gooney bird called by many the “Giant Gooney”.
Many a sailor found much idle time while at Midway Island. Some used that time to contemplate their fate and to put those thoughts into prose or poetry. The Land that God Forgot is one of those poems.
Continue reading “The Land that God Forgot”
AT MIDWAY THE “MINSTRELL” ENDS HER WANDERINGS,
AND MINE LIKEWISE PAUSE UNEXPECTEDLY
(Part two of excerpts from the book John Cameron’s Odyssey. Part One can be found HERE. Continue reading “John Cameron’s Odyssey Chapt. 10 – Pt 2”
John Cameron’s Odyssey was published in 1928 as a collection of stories of Captain John Cameron aboard the ship Ebon in the 1890’s. This excerpt describes the time that they spent at Midway Island.
A Luau at Kure Island – John Lafayette ADR 3 SAR Hanger Midway Island 1964-65
This is a series of photos that belonged to ADR3 John Lafayette who passed in 2009. They depict a luau that the Midway SAR crew brought to the Kure crew, including a pig that they roasted on a fire and plenty of Schlitz beer.
Ronald W. Hynes Story of the Koral Kings
In Early 1959, having volunteered for a tour of duty on an island referred to as Naval Air Station 3080; I arrived on Midway Island. My goad was a selfish one. I had enlisted in the Navy to do anything underwater. When boot camp was over, at Great Lakes, my entire company received orders to various Naval Air Training Centers. I knew that along with every island comes water – underwater. Continue reading “The Story of Koral Kings at Midway Island”