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nil April 1992 the dazzling San Diego sunshine created a halo behind the Midway's classic grey form dressed in bunting, with her colors and pennants streaming and her sailors in dress blues. Magnificent! Sitting so close, I couldn’t pull into focus all of the thousand-foot ship, big enough to displace nearly 70,000 tons. And I know that during this decommissioning ceremony, beautiful and moving as it surely would be, even such an eloquent speaker as the Secretary of the Navy would be hard-pressed to pull into focus more than 46 years of the Midway's glorious history. No one could.
Commander Paul Murphey, ending his second tour as the carrier’s senior chaplain, called down God’s blessings on ship and crew—as chaplains had done at 2200 every night under way since 10 September 1945. Then Secretary Garrett said that the Midway had secured her place in history, alongside such great names as the Bon Homme Richard and Missouri. Five thousand heads nodded in agreement. As Captain Larry Ernst, the Midway's final commanding officer, recounted her glorious history, old memories rolled in. . . .
From my chair on the bridge I can barely see the bow as it pitches in the angry sea off the northeast coast of Honshu. At neat intervals one F/A-18 Hornet after another emerges suddenly from the driving rain, coming in to catch a wire. Each quickly taxis clear to make a ready deck for the next. The pilots make it look so easy. Then the calm voices of the air traffic controllers remind me that the whole wonderful team of 4,300 is what makes it look so easy.
Now we are back in the Persian Gulf, and for weeks the pilots of CVW-5 have been delivering state-of-the- art ordnance—4,000,000 pounds of it—day and night,
against targets in Kuwait, and deep inside Iraq. The sailors had hit their stride early in the war, and they look as though they can carry on forever— I’ll never forget them. A newspaperman from Chicago wants the Midway “story;” I tell him he can pick from 4,300 of them. I see him next with one of the green-shirted catapult crew, a grease-covered sailor with a broad smile and a wrench bigger than himself. “Best air department in the fleet!” he says. Then someone interrupts to get in a word about the best supply department, the best weapons department, the best deck department, the best ... I walk away and thank God for sailors, my sailors, the best.
The war is over, and we are bound for Japan, the Midway s home for eighteen years. The plant has been steaming every day for more than six months. As we go through the Strait of Hormuz for the last time, all 12 boilers are on the line and the ship is making 30 knots. The engineer calls and asks if I’ll be needing any more speed.
Later, we take on fuel for the long trip across the Indian Ocean, break away from the oiler, and proudly play our break-away music—Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man. ’ The wake boils and the wind stiffens. . . .
Suddenly, I’m back on the pier at North Island. I hear Captain Ernst order the executive officer to March off the crew." As those magnificent sailors leave their ship for the last time, I hear once again the drums and trumpets of Copeland’s fanfare. It gets harder and harder to focus, and that classic grey form begins to blur and glisten around the edges.
aptain Arthur K. Cebrowski, U.S. Navy, was the commanding offi' cer of USS Midway during Operation Desert Storm. He is currently assigned to the Pentagon (OP-940) and is a rear admiral selectee.
Proceedings / June 1112