Most of the permanently assigned Naval personnel on an unaccompanied tour spent only a year on Midway. If it was an accompanied tour, then it was two years. Midway was considered as a hardship duty station. Always "done in" by the system, I spent 13 months on Midway under two different commands.
No Naval person is supposed to have two hardship duty stations back-to-back. Well folks, I did experience that joy. Yeah, from Midway to Vietnam!
Most of the Naval personnel in my assigned department (Public Works) were Seabees and their tour was short (most 12 months). The Navy had a core group of civilians who were there for a longer duration and provided continuity as the Seabees came and went.
Virtually all of the civilians were from the Hawaiian Islands and considering that in 1963, WWII was only over some 18 years and if they were in their 40's they witnessed Pearl Harbor 1st hand. I asked a lot of questions of these civilians and the common answer was terrible and the uncertainty was worse.
When I was the Base Maintenance Officer, I had a civilian secretary of Japanese ancestry, and her name was Sue Saito. Her husband Si was a top-notch Navy civilian machinist and could build literally anything. Si hand built a custom racing bike and always won the annual bike race.
After just a few days on the job Sue mentioned her brother fought in WWII and I almost blurted out which side. It turns out he was a member of the famous 442nd Nisei Regimental Combat Team (Motto, Go For Broke) and served with distinction... they all did!
The civilians loved music and even had an informal musical group. They often commented that Don Ho was a terrible craftsman (many knew and worked with him) and had to do music to live.
The civilians were journeymen plumbers, electricians, millwrights etc. But since Public Works had a large budget, we were subject to constant audits. One of the audits turned up that one of the officer quarters had an unusually large number of pluming service calls handled by one of the civilian plumbers and a pattern emerged. The calls were on Tuesday and Thursday around 10AM and called in by the wife of one of the medical doctors. Seems like our plumber was always checking the piping... her piping.
Speaking of doctors, Midway was not a place to get sick. While Midway, did have a hospital (Sickbay) and qualified surgeons there was a limit before you would have to be sent off island.
One Saturday morning we had a pass in review and inspection, and I noted a pain in my chest. After the event I went to Sickbay and the duty Doctor (he was the spouse of the wife who was having her pluming checked) examined me and said the following. "Pete, I don't know what you have but by Monday you will either be dead or better." Let that sink in for a minute. Fortunately, I didn't die that weekend.
Them that know can make things go.
73's
Pete N6QW
