Journey to Midway Island, 1962

I'm experimenting with some different names for my blog. Still thinking that the address http://victoriapann.blogspot.com will get you there no matter what I call it.  Life's adventures, sweet stories, sewing mishaps and successes, and fun times with children of all ages.

Here's a story from the chapter on Life's Adventures:
         In 1962, my Naval Officer dad got orders to report to Midway Island of the Pacific Ocean.  For those of you who don't have a map handy, it is aptly named because it is roughly midway between the U.S. and Asia, and midway between Alaska and Hawaii.  It's loaded with gooney birds, which is the colloquial for Laysan Albatross.

Gooney birds in our backyard on Midway.

Midway is very small.  It's only a mile or so wide and long.  Most of it is runway.  There are two islands, Sand and Eastern.  The people lived on Sand Island, and Eastern was abandoned. 

Sand Island

Eastern Island

We journeyed to Midway from Chicago, first heading to San Francisco.  My brothers and I enjoyed San Francisco, staying in an old downtown hotel with a lobby that smelled of cigars and leather chairs.  We rode cable cars and climbed hills on our chubby little legs.  

One windy day we reported to the wharves and got on board a ship.  

We were terribly excited about going UNDER the Golden Gate bridge, but once we left the dock and headed out into the San Francisco Bay, wearing a short little girl's dress did very little to keep me warm and I couldn't bear the cold.  I left my family to go to our cabin and play with a new set of paper dolls, asking my family to fetch me when we were about to go under the bridge.  Not long after, a steward poked his head in our open cabin door and said: "Missy, look out the porthole, we are going under the Golden Gate Bridge."  The family had not bothered to get me for this momentous occasion, but I got to see it anyway.  Perhaps not the sweeping view I had hoped for, but it wasn't lost.

Although it was June, the wind was blasting us nearly all the way to Honolulu.  The waves were huge, three often crashing together in a pyramid shaped volcanic eruption of foam. It was horrifying to think of sinking when we had the mandatory abandon ship drill.  We were required to wear hats as protection against the sun in the life rafts, and my dad put a towel over his head, which was uncharacteristic for this severely proper Naval Officer.  Hilariously funny to see him wearing such buffoonery, but I pulled down my mouth and tried not to giggle, as we were talking of sinking and I had to pay attention to the possibility of peril.  It seemed a very big ocean indeed to be lost in, especially considering the size of the swells.  

The parents took us up on the poop deck, which caused no end of tittering.  There was a tennis court up there, which was amusing.  Imagine someone trying to play tennis on the bucking poop deck in that wind.  Their tennis ball would be blown overboard, and they'd wind up on their bums holding their sprained ankle.

The stewards, mostly Filipino, were terribly kind to the three little children who felt miserable in the rolling ocean before ship stabilizers.  Our parents diverted us from being endlessly seasick by going on deck and watching the flying fish.  Nearly anytime of day, we could go on deck and see flying fish fleeing in fright.  They would leap out of the depths and zoom away, then disappear again into their watery hiding places.  What else might be down there, ready to leap out?  I wasn't even going to think about octopi.  It was scary, but interesting, and I stared with the same wide-eyed fascination as one would a Dracula movie.

Not that they showed us movies of Dracula, but we did get to see some, including several of Jesus.  I had never seen a movie featuring Jesus before, and thus this actor was burned into my thought forevermore as what Jesus looked like.  One time after the movies were over, my brother wanted to stay and do Kid's Crafts, so I walked back to our cabin by myself.  I took a wrong turn down a passageway and stumbled upon The Famous Upper Berth Room.  That's another story, but it was boarded up and hasn't been opened since.  I will admit, it did indeed smell like seaweed and was pretty damp.  Now that I know what I know, I'm surprised they hadn't shut down the entire passageway.

It got warmer, and one evening we saw another ship, a ghostly shadow on the horizon.  Dad said it was probably 10 miles away.  After being alone on the big ocean for days, it was eerie to even think there were other people out there.

Then one morning we got up and out the porthole was a green island!  Dad said it was Maui.  We got dressed and went on deck.  It was warm.  Calm too.  

We cruised past Maui, and on the other side of the boat was another island Dad said was Oahu.  My mom was getting more excited by the minute.  We rounded the tip of Oahu, and she spied what she was looking for, a hill she called Diamond Head.  It hardly looked like a diamond to me, either the type on playing cards or the one she wore in her wedding ring.  Sort of a squared off hill, really.  I didn't see the fascination, but then I had not watched all the movies she had.

The ship steamed around to Honolulu harbor, where the tallest building was the Aloha Tower.  The parents said that "aloha" meant both hello and goodbye.  As we docked, a brass band met us, which I loved.  The family stared over the railing at the docking procedure.  At last, dry land!  We left the ship and went into a large warehouse area, where large Hawaiian women in muumuus greeted us.  They hugged us to their ample bosoms and huskily whispered "Aloha" in our ears, while draping leis around us.  A rather friendly greeting from someone we don't even know, I thought.  

Aloha Tower

Disembarking in Honolulu

We stayed right on Waikiki at Ft. DeRussy, which gave us a small room in a WWII vintage building with paper thin walls and a community bathroom down the hall.  We loved the beach of course, and were slathered with Sea and Ski (SPF 0) and ate hot dogs from a cart for lunch every day.

                                                                                                            Ft. DeRussy

My parents had some friends living there from our sojourn in Newfoundland (another story).  They took us around the island with their boys Robert and Russell.

Pali Pass with brothers Clark (l) and Scott (r).

Kodak Hula show 1962, nothing changed except the cast.

Pineapple fields with my guys.

Waimea Bay, nearly wiped out in tsunami a few years before.

Waimea Falls Park with Robert, Russell, Clark and little Scott

King Kamehameha statue

From the Punchbowl, downtown Honolulu, 1962.

Looking Ewa (west). I didn't know then I would live out there in the late 1970's, but that was still a long time in the future. You can barely see it, but they are burning cane fields out there.

Elvis had just visited Hawaii the year before, and everything was focused on surfing, Duke Kahanamoku, and hula girls.  Vintage Hawaii!

Not my mom and dad.

The time approached for us to fly to Midway (they only had two flights per week). We spent spent one entire day sitting for HOURS on red plastic chairs at Hickum Air Force Base while Dad talked to the Public Works Officer he was replacing.  I remember staring at a mural, wishing I could have some of that aromatic popcorn they were selling, and being bored to death.

The day came to catch the plane to Midway, and Mom bought us candy leis, probably as recompense for having to sit for more hours while Dad talked to that guy again.

The flight to Midway was 5 hours long.  Endless ocean.  Fluffy clouds.  More ocean.  More clouds.  There was what they used to call a "stewardess" on the flight, and we were served pineapple juice.  Like anything to eat we were given, my younger brother and I gulped it down.  This was unlike my older brother Clark, who hoarded.  He carefully held his paper cup of pineapple juice until he fell asleep, and it tipped into his lap.  Scott and I for some reason thought this was hilarious, but I feel sorry now we ever laughed.  It must have been quite a shock.

The real shock came when we finally saw Midway.  "That's it?" asked my mom.  "It looks terribly small."  

"It is small," agreed my dad.

"What's to prevent the Soviets from invading?" she asked.

"What? Someone might invade?" I wondered.

"They wouldn't dare," affirmed my dad.

Midway was the western end of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line.  No satellites in those days, and the Cold War was raging.  So to warn of imminent attack by the Soviet Union, the U.S. had the DEW line.  Radar stations on land, and Willy Victor airplanes flying over the ocean warned of incoming enemy ships, planes and missiles.  Midway was home to a fleet of Willy Victors that flew up to the Aleutian Islands 24 hours a day to monitor incoming dangers.  It took them 7 hours up and 7 hours back.  That was the whole purpose of the base on Midway Island.

Willy Victor aircraft, 1960's

We were met off the plane by some friends of my parents who had the privilege of driving one of two cars on the island. Everyone but them rode "horses," which were what they called bicycles.

At the Midway airport.

The friends drove us in our car to our new house.  It was a huge house for such a small island, but Dad was one of the ranking officers that lived in Commander Row, right across the street from the Commanding Officer.

Dad (r) and his executive officer, Lonnie Robbins (l), in our backyard.

There was only one fresh water faucet in our house, which was in the kitchen.  It was a dreadfully hot day, and Mom turned it on to get a drink.  Out poured orange water.

Welcome to Midway Island.