I promise-- this is the last posting about Midway Island (Sand Island).
Midway Island Moaning Bird
My 1st night on Midway (1963), I was quartered in the old wooden BOQ, built during the island buildup program just prior to Pearl Harbor. The building smelled awful and included a population of very large rats. I caught a 13-inch-long rat (nose to tail) in my room using an industrial sized rat trap.
The old BOQ housed the very junior officers (like me), the schoolteachers and other civilian contractors. My next-door neighbor, a civilian contractor, seemed to have connections with the ladies of the isle. Back to the 1st night there and about midnight I heard this eerie sound and concluded it was one of the ladies of the night visiting my neighbor. Listen to the video and see why I reached that conclusion.
Well as it turned out it was not a lady of the night but one of a unique species of birds that occupy Midway. After the rat incident, I managed to get assigned to the new concrete constructed BOQ and no more rats. But with the screened windows open at night, you did hear that same sound.
One other bit of info about my neighbor was that he was a ham and, in his room, he had a Collins KWM-1 with a wire antenna strung out to an Ironwood tree. I was hooked when I saw his rig as I made a promise to myself to one day own a KWM-1. I did keep that promise and have several. That neighbor had the best of all worlds: A drink at the O Club was $0.25, he had a Collins KWM-1 and visits with the ladies of the night. He also made a ton of money!
His company (Page Communications Engineers) was installing Tropospheric Scatter Radio Relay stations across the Pacific. The antennas were Sterba like Curtain Arrays on 300 ft towers. We all knew the why of that communications link. It was only 20 months after 1st being assigned to Midway that in May 1965, I was at the terminal end of that radio system.
Them that know can make it go.
73's
Pete N6QW