Midway Recollections

It took long enough for me to realize that I had never collected all the loose bits of information on my two Midway visits into one consolidated article, so sixty-five years later, I’m finally getting around to doing what should have been done years ago.  I did send  letters which included some information, and there is, of course, the article Midway – Island of Destiny, prepared by Steve Pendleton for the Global Stamp News in April 2001, but the latter concentrated on a philatelic Midway.  What I am now preparing is a composite of the letters and non-philatelic material from the article, fleshed-out with added material.  

The Atoll.  Midway is the top of an extinct underwater volcano and the end isles of the Hawaiian chain.  The atoll is roughly eight miles in diameter with two islands, Sand and Eastern, and a number of islets surrounding a lagoon.  It is located in the Central Pacific Ocean midway between the west coast of the United States and Japan – and thence its name.  The two major islands may be found side-by-side to the south on the atoll reef, separated by a dredged channel permitting ships entrance to a lagoon.  The closest island to the west is Kure, a tiny uninhabited isle.  To the east are a string of reefs and shoals leading to the most westerly of the major Hawaiian Islands, Kauai.  During the war an emergency landing strip and base was constructed on the French Frigate Shoals, located about halfway between Kauai and Midway.  The islands are now a National Wildlife Refuge operated under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with Eastern Island closed to visitors.  Sand Island, however, is open to a maximum of 100 tourists per week under strict limitations of activities. 

Eastern Island.  This essay will be mostly about Eastern Island, where I was twice quartered, though I was a frequent visitor to Sand Island.  Eastern Island is roughly triangular in shape with the widest end being three-quarters of a mile wide at the eastern end and the length being about a mile and a quarter pointing west toward Sand Island.  The island had three air strips and an engineering / shop area on the north interior lagoon shore that comprised most of the island.  The air strips were bordered by revetments to house and protect the planes.  Each revetment was partly below ground level with the excavated coral used to construct above ground berms on three sides.  The fourth side was open and gave access to the strips.  The floor of the revetment sloped from the open side down at an angle of about thirty degrees to the below ground bottom.  Three tracks made of wood were installed on the floor of the revetment to accept the wheels of the plane.  In operation, the pilot would taxi the plane to the revetment and, under guidance from the crew chief, swivel the plane so that the wheels were lined up with the tracks.  The crew would push the plane onto the tracks while the crew chief operated the brakes from the cockpit and slowly permitted the craft to roll down the tracks to the bottom of the revetment where blocks of wood would anchor the wheels.

Built into the side of each revetment was a small shed used for living quarters for the crew.  Each shed had two-tiered bunks at each end of the shed with small storage areas at the end of each bunk.  Between the bunks was a utility table and desk. The shed was installed in the berm wall above the floor of the revetment to protect against water which infiltrated the revetment at high tide and during storms.  Eastern Island was only about six feet above sea-level and infiltrating water was always a problem.  The roof of the shed was covered with tarpaper and a layer of coral.  The outside face of the shed had two windows on either side of an open doorway.  The windows had a small covering that extended a few inches to provide some shade and protection against a driving rain.  All of the plane crews modified their quarters to suit their needs and renovations were constantly in progress.

When I first arrived at Midway with the small reinforcement contingent of mechanics and gunners, I was placed in reserve and not assigned to any aircraft.  Marines not quartered with the planes were assigned bunks in large bunkers buried at scattered sites around the island.  These dugouts were large, having about ten double bunks on each of the two walls with indirect entrances on both ends protected with small chambers covered with blankets to impede the entrance of gas, should it be used.  The roof of the bunker had a number of vents for air circulation.  Hot and uncomfortable to live in, most residents immediately sought alternate quarters.  Living spaces were available elsewhere but had to be found.  For example, I moved into an abandoned one-man tent before my aircraft assignment.   

Scattered about the island were many small power generators to provide emergency power if needed.  When the main Eastern Island power station was destroyed during the June 1942 attack, the availability of the secondary sources of power was appreciated.  It wasn’t until many months later when the Seabee construction battalion arrived that power generation was returned to normal.   

Built into the end of each berm at the strip level, were magazines.  Each magazine contained sufficient bombs and ammunition to rearm at least one aircraft.  Some magazines were larger than others, permitting storage of additional ordinance.  In the floor of each revetment six 50-gallon drums of aviation fuel were buried.  Each ground crew had a hand operated fuel pump stored in the magazine.  The purpose of these caches was to provide planes returning from a combat mission, a quick rearming and refueling capability without depending upon fuel tankers and ammunition trucks which might not be able to meet the planes.

There was always the possibility that a plane might not be able to participate in an alert, in which case the rear pair of machine-guns could be removed for use as ground defense weapons.  Behind most revetments were sand bagged gun positions arranged to accept the aircraft’s rear guns.  Other gun positions were constructed to accept surplus gun sets that were used as back up by the squadron’s ordnance crews.  Small magazines of 30-caliber ammunition were maintained for the latter.  When an alert was sounded and a plane could not respond, the rear guns were routinely transferred to the revetment’s gun position until the plane was available.  This was not done during routine alerts.

Every day there were dawn and evening alerts.  All assigned pilots would report to their respective revetments and remain until the alert ended.  Most pilots upon arriving at the revetment would appropriate one of the four bunks and go back to sleep while at least one member of the crew would remain on alert.  Two of the squadron’s aircraft would be taxied to the end of one of the strips and remain fully manned with pilot, gunner and ground crew until the alert ended.

Goonies: Adults (Top), Chicks (Bottom)

When I first arrived at Midway with the small reinforcement contingent of mechanics and gunners, I was placed in reserve and not assigned to any aircraft.  Marines not quartered with the planes were assigned bunks in large bunkers buried at scattered sites around the island.  These dugouts were large, having about ten double bunks on each of the two walls with indirect entrances on both ends protected with small chambers covered with blankets to impede the entrance of gas, should it be used.  The roof of the bunker had a number of vents for air circulation.  Hot and uncomfortable to live in, most residents immediately sought alternate quarters.  Living spaces were available elsewhere but had to be found.  For example, I moved into an abandoned one-man tent before my aircraft assignment.   

Scattered about the island were many small power generators to provide emergency power if needed.  When the main Eastern Island power station was destroyed during the June 1942 attack, the availability of the secondary sources of power was appreciated.  It wasn’t until many months later when the Seabee construction battalion arrived that power generation was returned to normal.   

Built into the end of each berm at the strip level, were magazines.  Each magazine contained sufficient bombs and ammunition to rearm at least one aircraft.  Some magazines were larger than others, permitting storage of additional ordinance.  In the floor of each revetment six 50-gallon drums of aviation fuel were buried.  Each ground crew had a hand operated fuel pump stored in the magazine.  The purpose of these caches was to provide planes returning from a combat mission, a quick rearming and refueling capability without depending upon fuel tankers and ammunition trucks which might not be able to meet the planes.

There was always the possibility that a plane might not be able to participate in an alert, in which case the rear pair of machine-guns could be removed for use as ground defense weapons.  Behind most revetments were sand bagged gun positions arranged to accept the aircraft’s rear guns.  Other gun positions were constructed to accept surplus gun sets that were used as back up by the squadron’s ordnance crews.  Small magazines of 30-caliber ammunition were maintained for the latter.  When an alert was sounded and a plane could not respond, the rear guns were routinely transferred to the revetment’s gun position until the plane was available.  This was not done during routine alerts.

Every day there were dawn and evening alerts.  All assigned pilots would report to their respective revetments and remain until the alert ended.  Most pilots upon arriving at the revetment would appropriate one of the four bunks and go back to sleep while at least one member of the crew would remain on alert.  Two of the squadron’s aircraft would be taxied to the end of one of the strips and remain fully manned with pilot, gunner and ground crew until the alert ended.

The Marine Defense Battalion.  Besides the squadrons of planes defending the atoll

were the Marines of the ground forces forming a defense battalion.  There mission was to defend the islands from the ground, a sizable task when you consider how few they were and how difficult their assignment.  One of the odd features of this unit was the equipment they had.  They operated two or three (I never could be sure of the number), baby tanks armed with a single 37 mm weapon and at least one machine gun.  If it weren’t for the obvious purpose of these vehicles, they could be mistaken for recreational toys.  They were a form of mobile light artillery that could be moved about the island to where they were needed in the event of an attack.   But the most surprising items of equipment in their inventory were the seven inch pieces of artillery.  Conventional naval artillery is either six or eight inches, never seven.  Even the members of the defense battalion weren’t sure how they came to be made.  The best of the rumors had the navy experimenting with the odd-ball size to determine if changing the caliber would affect savings without appreciably reduce effectiveness.  When the tests ended, the navy ruled against the change but had a small number of artillery pieces which they declared surplus.  Since there still was a quantity of ammunition on hand, someone decided to gift the artillery to the Marines.  Had this not happened, in all probability the weapons transferred to Midway would have been six inch, the normal armament for a light cruiser. 

One of the major tasks performed by the defense battalion was installing and maintaining the beach defenses.   Almost all of the beaches had triple-apron barbed wire entanglements supplemented with concertina.  On the water side of the wire, the beaches were mined with contact mines.  Behind the wire were small pedestals of concrete, about four feet high on which were fixed remote controlled fragmentation mines.  Spaced along the rear of the beaches were some concrete pill-boxes.  In yet other locations there were positions prepared to accept personnel in the event of attack.

Eastern Island was small and the runways ended close to the beaches to provide maximum landing and take-off space for the planes.  All too often, and especially when it was necessary to use the short strip, a landing plane would catch its wheels on the wire and take out entire sections.  Damage to the plane would usually be minor, but damage to the wire could be extensive. This is especially true if the mine field was damaged.

The defense battalion had both fixed and mobile defenses, such as the tanks, and periodically ran training exercises on moving forces to different areas of the island.  One such lightly armed group would practice moving through the shallows to Spit Island which was adjacent to the ship channel.  

Birds of Midway.  Not many readers will know that the Midway atoll was and is a bird sanctuary.  The bird population of Midway numbers in the tens of thousands, at least.  After the war, Midway was transferred to the United States Department of Interior; visitors were barred from Eastern Island and a limited number permitted to visit Sand Island.  The birds of Midway are discussed in my essay Pacific Wildlife, which see.  

Albatross

Midway provided a potpourri of bird life that few other locations, if any, could match.  Flight operations were constantly challenged by the clouds of birds that always lingered over and on the strips.  Before planes could take off or land, it was often necessary to have jeeps drive down the runways to drive off the birds.  The Albatross was a turkey sized bird with a wingspan of 8-10 feet.  Many aircraft suffered severe damage when one such bird struck a wing or engine.  The possibility of multiple hits was always there.  An Albatross (Gooney bird), striking the leading edge of a wing would crush the nose and upper camber of the wing back to the main spar.  While there are no records of such damage causing a crash, the impact creates some instability, forcing the plane to land, and the repairs are both messy and time consuming.  Some damage was so extensive that it was simpler to replace the wing and repair the strike without lengthy down time for the plane.  Large birds that struck the engine usually caused extensive cleaning and the replacement of the propeller as a safety measure.  A strike on a wing tip or the empennage would almost guarantee replacement of the member.  During my two tours, I don’t ever recall a bird striking the front of the pilot’s canopy.  If it happened, however, the damage could vary, but at low altitude with the canopy always open, a canopy strike would certainly be a bloody mess for the occupants and the craft.

The Albatross was the big problem for flight operations.  Other large birds, such as the Frigate, were rarely seen on land.  Most of the smaller birds stayed off the runways, spending their time in the air or in the scaviolla shrubs.  Albatross were a delight to see when flying.  They were graceful and majestic.  But on the ground, it was a different story.  They needed a long stretch of open ground for taking off, usually into a wind.  They would spread their massive wings and while running flap them until they were airborne.  Once in the air, they were pure poetry.  On occasion, however, they would fail to gain flight speed and would attempt to abort.  This almost always occasioned their falling on their breast and beak, and sometimes tumbling, dragging a wing.  The bird would get up, shake itself, and seem to look around to see if anyone noticed.  Because they require a long stretch of take off space, they clutter the runways and taxi areas causing a hazard to aircraft.

                                   
                           The Albatross, known to all its friends as the Gooney bird.

Older Chick

Howdy

Flight Time at Midway

Courtship

As I was Saying . . .

Where does a Gooney Nest?  Anywhere it Wants to!

Young Chick

When landing, the Albatross would glide in until it was two or three feet above the ground, then it    would spread its tail, turn its body and wings slightly upwards, and frantically flapping its wings to  slow down, extend its legs toward the ground before making a sometimes awkward landing    Much depended on the wind.  A good wind helped the Albatross make a good landing.  No wind and the     bird would almost always topple on its beak.  Fortunately for them, Midway had a prevailing wind.  

The goonies are a migratory species.  They spend the winters at Midway where they nest and raise     their broods.  In the spring they fly to Alaska and the Aleutians.  The chicks were about the size of a chicken when born.  They were covered with down-like black and grey fuzz which gradually wore off.  From the time they were born until the time came to fly north, they were constantly fed with regurgitated food by the parents in an effort to strengthen the chicks for their migratory trip.  The chicks would stand on the runways in the wind with their wings spread, not flapping or moving.  It appeared to be part of their strengthening process.  When the time came for the flight north, the birds left in large groups.  Chicks born late or chicks not strong enough to make the trip were left behind.  Since they were unable to feed themselves, they eventually died.  There always was a clean-up of dead chicks after the migratory flights.  Not all at once, since some chicks lasted longer than others.  It was a sad time.  Survival of the fittest, I guess - Nature’s way of maintaining a strong breed.

Food. When Midway was reinforced before the war, a supply of emergency food was stocked on Sand Island.  The bulk of these supplies was canned Spam and soup, coffee and crates of hardtack from WW I.  These items of food would literally become life savers after the Battle of Midway was won.  The retreating Japanese fleets were on their way home, but lingering behind was their submarine screen which Japan had planned to use to ambush any American warships responding to Midway’s call for help.  Of course, what they didn’t know was that we had broken their military codes some time before and knew when they were coming and with what vessels.  Armed with this knowledge, the U.S. carrier fleet had already left Pearl Harbor and was moving into position north- east of Midway Island.  The Japanese submarine screen moved into their planned positions, but too late to intercept our carriers.  When the battle ended, they were still there, between the major Hawaiian Islands and Midway.  Though they were unable to affect the battle, they were in a position to temporarily cut-off or reduce the flow of supplies to Midway.  Whether this was intended from the start or was a last minute face-saving decision is not known, but Midway was unable to receive shipments for some time after the battle.

One incident at the time of the food shortage had to do with the retiring Japanese submarine screen.  With the battle lost and their screen rapidly becoming less effective, the Japanese submarines retired to more hospitable areas.  At least one submarine lingered in the Midway area, surfacing on late Sunday nights off the southern coast of the islands.  His apparent plan was to surface, shell the island and leave before any action could be taken against him.  It was standard practice on both islands to not show any lights.  The members of the defense battalion went as far as banning cigarette smoking in open areas.  On nights when there would be strong Moonlight, the lights out rules still prevented a gunner from establishing good range data.  So it was a good workable rule. 

The submarine surfaced on two successive Sundays and lobbed a half-dozen or so shells on the island – or so he thought.  Pacific Ocean waters emit a greenish phosphorescent glow when disturbed.  This can be seen at night in a ship’s wake, but any disturbance will create the phosphorescence.  The two major Midway Islands are on the southern edge of the atoll’s 8-10 mile diameter reef.  Waves breaking on the islands’ shores would show some phosphorescence but not near as much as the waves breaking on the reef.  The shore’s soft incline would be overwhelmed by the rough waters of the distant reef.  To the Japanese gunner aiming in the dark at the island from an unknown distance, the only real light he would see would be that of the phosphorescence of the reef ten plus miles away.  That explanation is the only one that would account for the submarine surfacing in the dead of night to shell a reef. 

After the second night, our squadron placed two planes armed with depth charges on patrol over the island and waited the arrival of the submarine.  Both pilots and gunners had spent the latter part of the day under red lights, a normal technique used when night flights are planned.  Right on schedule the submarine surfaced, but before the first shot was fired, the two patrol planes heavily strafed the submarine and depth charged it when it submerged.  Whether the sub was sunk is questionable, but it never returned.  After two additional Sunday night patrols, we abandoned the task.          

They can call military cooks all the names in this world, but for the weeks that we were unable to receive food, the Marine and navy cooks did an outstanding job with the tools and supplies that were on hand.  Spam was the principle meat.  They cooked and served it in an infinite variety of ways.  Using hardtack, they breaded it to appear as chops; using tomato sauce they diced it for a stew; breaded fingers of Spam with tomato dip, and as many ways as can be imagined, they cut and cooked Spam.  Usually, Spam in some form was one meal.  The second meal was usually soup and hardtack, though hardtack was available at all times. 

With this limited menu, it didn’t take long for everyone to reminisce about the foods of better times.  Air traffic from Pearl was extremely limited.  The French Frigate Shoals midpoint airstrip was yet to be built and without the emergency landing facilities, flights were few and risky and cargo was limited to essentials like medical supplies. But every flight that did arrive at Midway created rumors of additional food having been flown in.  On the day that the cooks prepared the Spam in breaded triangles, the rumor was that a shipment of pork chops had been flown in.  The stampede to the chow line was duplicated by the flow of the disappointed back to work.

Toward the end, there was a flight that was made to Midway with a cargo of fresh eggs – enough eggs for everyone.  The plane was outfitted with additional fuel tanks and was flown by a volunteer crew.  When the plane arrived and the word went out that there were eggs aboard, few were willing to believe it.  The trickle to the chow line quickly became a flood of pleased chow hounds.  Shortly thereafter, food began arriving on a scheduled basis and no one wanted for anything.  It would be easy to ask why Midway, so close to Hawaii would, be deprived of anything.  Fair enough, but the reader must keep in mind the concurrent military activities in the western and southwestern waters of the Pacific.  Midway won its battle, but the outcome of the other battles was yet to be determined. 

It wasn’t all Spam and hardtack, however.  The lagoon was a rich source of edible fish, though some poisonous varieties existed and care had to be taken to choose carefully.  So we fished with care.  Our catches were cooked on a piece of scrap aluminum over a pile of coral soaked with gasoline.  Every morning the crew of a plane must drain a valve in the fuel system of any collected water.  This water is from natural condensation in the fuel system.  The valve (called a Luckenheimer), collects the condensate at a low point in the fuel system.  Normally, the collected water contaminated gasoline, about a half-cup, was spilled on the ground where it evaporated.  With a need for cooking fuel, we saved and used the condensate to fry fish.  You might say we had a fish fry on a beach of a tropical island in the Pacific.  Not exactly what the travel posters show now-a-days, but we did with what we had.

Submarine Patrols.  One of the most important functions of Midway was the maintenance of a submarine base from Sand Island.  Midway was the depot from which the entire Central Pacific submarine fleet operated.  Remove Midway, and our major submarine base for the Central Pacific is moved to Hawaii, adding thousands of miles of travel for our submarines before they would enter enemy waters.

Anchored at Sand Island was a navy submarine tender.  These vessels are capable of doing all but the most extensive repairs to a submarine and its equipment.  A tender is one of the most complete machine tool vessels in the navy.  It has to be because an entire fleet of submarines depends upon it for maintenance and repair at a distant shore.

When a submarine leaves Midway for a patrol, everyone with a need to know knows where it’s going and when it is scheduled to return.  Each submarine has a code book with the challenges and responses for every 15 minutes of the submarine’s patrol plus a predetermined period of time beyond the patrol’s end.  The latter to provide for the possible delay in the sub’s return to Midway.  In addition, depending upon the time of day, the returning sub must approach Midway on the surface and on a particular course.  It would be a shame to have a sub returning late being sunk in error.  The codes and courses were an attempt to protect against this happening.  Each patrol plane had the same code book, the major difference being that the aircraft version of the book was layered between covers of steel.  Should the plane go down, the book would go down with it.  In the event the plane would be forced to land on grounds not controlled by the U.S., the steel covered book would be tossed into the sea.

Aircraft Patrols. One of the most important tasks of squadrons based on an island such as Midway    is  to patrol the seas around the island for indications of enemy activity.  On Midway, the big PBYs patrolled the more distant seas, while the SBD’s covered the seas closer to the island.  It wa a PBY that first discovered the Japanese approaching Midway from the southwest.

Any expected vessel approaching Midway would receive a coded challenge using a high-intensity light gun operated from the two-plane patrol flying with guns exposed at a distance alongside the ship.  The ship was expected to reply with the proper signal or radio an answer on a predetermined frequency.  If the ship failed to reply, the signal would be repeated.  A second failure would create alert conditions on Midway.  The lead pilot of the patrol would fire his 50-caliber machine guns across the bow of the vessel and both planes would retire to a distance from the ship.  This usually brought the required response.  Wartime conditions for commercial sailors sometimes were confusing and were usually the reason for not responding.  Other times it appeared that they didn’t take the challenge seriously.  If they failed to respond after both challenges, they could be boarded by patrol boats from Midway.  In any case, the ship would remain under surveillance until it reached Midway at which time it would be boarded and the officers taken into custody to determine the reasons for non-compliance. 

If the vessel was not known or expected, failure to respond to a challenge could subject the ship to attack.  The only incident of this nature that I am aware of was during my first tour when an unexpected vessel approached Midway after the Japanese submarine screen had been broken.  It must be realized that the pilots were still a bit edgy and in no mood to accept ship’s crews failures to comply with regulations.  When the stranger didn’t respond, the patrol lead pilot guided the flight to altitude where he rolled over and dive-bombed a 200-pound fragmentation bomb about a half-mile from the ship’s bow.  The response to the challenge was instantaneous! 

West of of Midway was the tiny island of Kure.  It was extremely small and was inhabited by a few seals and some birds.  Our concern was that a Japanese submarine might surface during the night and bury weather instruments in the beaches.  Patrols over Kure always examined the beaches for signs of disturbance.  If an area looked suspicious, it was subjected to machine gun fire to destroy any buried equipment. 

Midway Lagoon. The natural features of the lagoon and the channel leading into it were vastly different from what existed before Congress took its collective head out of the isolationist sand and permitted President Roosevelt to rebuild our defenses.

The current ship’s channel between Eastern and Sand Islands didn’t exist – there was a passage of sorts, but not for ships.  When the building of defenses at Midway began there were no requirements, such as exist today, for environmental studies and similar legislation.  The decision was made that the lagoon should be an adequate anchorage for vessels and that the channel between the two islands be dredged and broadened to accept vessels capable of using the anchorage.  Work was completed without incident and the United States had a fine, though small, anchorage for our military, almost two thousand miles closer to Japan and its outlying fortresses.

The navy was very pleased with the improvements, but not completely happy.  The two photos of Midway displayed on page one, shows an opening in the encircling reef in the northwest that the navy was aware existed, but could do nothing to close it.  Before dredging the ship channel between the two islands they had considered dredging the Northwest Passage by expanding what already existed, but decided against it reasoning that the shallows of the Northwest Passage provided a natural defense against all but very small boats.  Besides, the southern passage was more accessible for vessels arriving from the U.S. and more easily defended against intruders.  Still, there were doubts.  Fortunately, the decision was never tested.

After the lagoon was prepared for receiving vessels, it was decided to provide a means for anchored vessels to exit the lagoon quickly in the event of an emergency.  Normally, a ship would enter the lagoon and drop anchor at a chosen spot.  To leave, the anchor would first need be raised, a time consuming task.  It was decided that a number of pontoons would be permanently anchored to the sea floor with heavy chains and the large pontoons equipped with cleats and fair-leads for vessels to use in place of conventional anchoring.  The system appeared to work satisfactorily, but on one particularly stormy night, when seas were heavy through the Northwest Passage, one of the pontoons either broke loose from its chain or dragging its anchor floated in a general southeast direction   toward the north shore of Eastern Island.  Suspecting Japanese landing craft had entered the lagoon an alert was called by the members of the Marine Defense Battalion and in the next 15-20 minutes the area “threatened” by the pontoon was alive with the mobile defense unit of the MDB and the tanks.  Searchlights exposed the invader for what it was and prevented the pontoon from being turned into scrap metal

It turned out to be a dragged anchor chain that had pulled loose from its bed.  While the entire event was an unplanned exercise, it did demonstrate for all that the MDB was not only capable of doing its job, but was capable of maintaining fire discipline during what could have been a real emergency.  The event caused the navy to modify and reinforce the pontoon anchors.

Comments on Eastern Island.  During most of the war, Sand Island did not have any airstrips and the air defense of the atoll was dependent on the three strips on Eastern Island.  In the photo, you can see the many plane revetments scattered along the strips.  The engineering line, where planes were repaired and serviced, was located north of where the two main airstrips cross and was adjacent to the lagoon where a small pier existed permitting traffic to Sand Island through a dredged passage.  It included a number of Quonset huts housing repair shops and other small structures used for parts storage.  West of the engineering line is an area with light spots on the photo.  It is the approximate location of the power house which powered the entire island.  The power house was enclosed by two separate walls of heavy logs spaced apart and filled with coral from the dredging.  It was designed to withstand moderate shell-fire and all but a direct hit.  It was vulnerable to a dive bombing attack and that was exactly what happened:  One bomb struck the structure within the log walls, destroying the building and killing all within.  The remote secondary generators continued to provide power, but on a limited basis. 

The triangular area interior to the intersection of the three runways, housed a command post and a number of dugouts for personnel and storage.  Quartered in this area were some Marines from Arkansas and Tennessee who were able to cook a concoction made from leftover fruit syrups supplied by the cooks into a distilled brandy-like liquor which they called white lightning.  It was a cloudy liquid that had to be mixed with water to be drinkable.  I have no idea of the proof, but it must have been very high.

When the Japanese attacked Midway in 1942 the media went wild in their reporting.  Unfortunately, much was incorrect.  Two of the photos that were given broad coverage in the newspapers were of a hanger severely damaged and oil tanks destroyed and burning on Sand Island from the Japanese air attack.  While it was true the attacking dive bombers were the cause of the fire and destruction, the implication that military facilities had been destroyed was incorrect.  Both the hanger and the tanks were leftovers from the pre-war Pan American China Clipper days.  The fires were from burning sludge in the abandoned Pan American oil tanks.  Fuel tanks used by the U.S. forces were buried off-shore on the lagoon side of Sand Island.  There were no military hangers at Midway.

 Climate.  Prevailing winds and the Japanese current keep Midway temperatures relatively constant with cool winter rainy seasons and hot summers.  Clothing worn ranged from dungarees and shirts, with the occasional use of a light jacket, during the winters to either dungarees or shorts (some cut the legs from otherwise torn dungarees) and little or no shirts in the warm weather.  An example of how hot the summers were, when planes returned from a flight, the engine cowling flaps would be left open and, depending on the amount of wind, the canopies would be slid open to help cool the interior of the cockpits.  On a windy day the canopies would only be cracked open to avoid airborne coral.  We always tried to have the canopies open on hot days to avoid heat buildup that could affect equipment and be extremely uncomfortable for flight crews.  

On one particular day when the flight returned, the oxygen equipment specialist had visited the revetment to replace the oxygen bottle and maintain the related devices.  When he left the plane, he hung the masks over the side of the cockpits to facilitate drying.  I had been under the fuselage doing a post-flight check. When I climbed on the wing to check the cockpits, I was on the side of the craft opposite where the oxygen masks were drying.  Without thinking, I reached across the cockpit to retrieve the mask.  In so doing, my bare stomach pressed against the extremely hot fuselage and I was burned enough to warrant a trip to the sick bay.  Days later when the burned skin had peeled off and my new white skin was exposed, I looked like one of the television Tubbies.  The difference, of course, was the Tubbies had a TV window in their bellies while I had this rectangle of new white skin which contrasted with my deeply tanned body.  What bothered me most was my white patch advertised to everyone that I had made a stupid mistake.  And in a combat area, stupid mistakes get people killed.  

Seabees.  Life in the islands wasn’t always a grim life and death struggle.  While our quarters were never luxurious, most people adapted to their individual situations and managed.  The occasional individual who couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt was usually found out and transferred, if possible.  After the battle had been won and the Japanese were retiring in full retreat, we were faced with reality.  The Japanese had avoided damaging the runways, planning to use them in the event the United States was able to mount a counter-attack after their landing forces had taken the islands.  But just about everything else was destroyed or damaged. 

Seabees to the rescue!  The navy organized men with construction and technical knowledge into a construction battalion.  This unit ultimately grew into many comparable units that did much good work in the islands during the war and was much appreciated by Marines everywhere  Many Seabee units were hard at work on construction projects while the Marines were still busy neutralizing an island.  Of all the service relationships, the one that existed between the Marines and the Seabees was the greatest.

When the Seabees first showed up at Midway, we had no idea who or what they were.  But when a part of Eastern Island near the engineering line was cleared for storage and the Seabees started to bring in quantities of material for construction, we knew that the heavens had smiled upon us.  Every revetment, dugout, gun position, whatever, was in dire need of repair and suddenly we found the island awash in new construction material.  Manna from heaven! 

The Seabees unloaded their equipment and supplies and retired to their assigned living spaces with the intent of initiating preplanned repair and installation projects on the morrow.  That night, like ants at a picnic, the Marines descended upon the storage area and removed anything and everything that could be used for their pet repair projects.  Tar sealant and tar paper to waterproof the roofs of their quarters; lumber to repair or replace damaged revetment wheel tracks; sections of hose and piping for showers; wiring for lights and radios; paint and just about anything deemed useful for more comfortable living.  Early the following morning when the losses were discovered by the Seabees and reported to our colonel, an assembly was ordered and we were directed to seek out the “lost” material and see that it was returned to the Seabee storage area.  Since just about all the material was still unused, the storage depot was returned to its original state.  To avoid a repeat of the incident, Marines from the Marine Defense Battalion were assigned as guards and sentries.

All-in-all, the Marine and Seabee officers took a very broad view of what had happened and, to my knowledge, no disciplinary actions were taken, since just about every Marine on the island was involved.

Conclusion.  The current year is 2007 and I am 85 years old trying to recall and write about events that happened as early as 1942 when I was only 20 years old.  Though I tried to be accurate, some discrepancies may have been included.  If so, I apologize, it wasn’t done intentionally.  What is strange, while preparing this essay I can see the faces of some of my comrades and can see some of the places that I am writing about, but it’s like seeing all in a light mist or fog – nothing is clear.  The photos were a great help.  They permitted better recall when I viewed them, though there has been much change.  The barbed wire has been removed: I would guess to protect the birds.  The MDB gun positions are no longer recognizable.  The pontoons are gone and I wonder how much use is now made of the anchorage or if it’s used at all.  While Eastern Island has been closed to the public, my references tell me that the remaining Pan American and cable company buildings are still in use, though some date to the 1930s.  Remarkable!

2007

LFC

  

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