One cool weekend

This is looking back to one fine day when the winter sun in the U.S. of A. got conducive to sight-seeing. Family and friends found ourselves atop the USS YORKTOWN moored in Charleston, South Carolina.

The military dubbed it “The Fighting Lady” probably to lend an aura of gentility to this behemoth of an aircraft carrier, the USS YORKTOWN . Call it by any other name, to paraphrase my friend Bill S. (Shakespeare no less), it is still an instrument of war with all the deadly connotations the term conjures.

I walked through its 888-foot length where once “the aircraft that ruled the skies” had taken off. Silence reigned on its vast flight deck, but for the pitter-patter of a few tourists that included my daughters Rose's and Randy's brood. Gone was the hurry-scurry of the crew of 380 officers and 3,088 enlisted men it carried during World War II. Impressive statistics in the tour guide include accommodating an air group of 90 planes and displacing 27,100 tons (of water, what else) which later increased to 41,000 tons with the addition of an angled deck for jets.

USS YORKTOWN brought to mind another experience of things involving instruments of war—that was when I was inside one, the submarine USS REQUIN . Two years ago, we brought our grandson Jetrone, a Philippine Science High School student, for a learning experience at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where one of its many attractions is the USS REQUIN . I whisked through the submarine's length of some 300 feet, claustrophobia getting the better of my curiosity. But I did tap the murderous torpedo mounted on the side.

The YORKTOWN had me lingering for more than two hours especially because the Philippines was very much a part of its history. It supported American ground troops in the Philippines, at Iwo Jima, and at Okinawa until the defeat of Japan in 1945. Moored at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, it greets visitors with the huge name USS YORKTOWN CV-10 THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL AVIATION CARRIER . The dedication embossed in metal was so heart-tugging I had to jot it down: “To tell the story to all the people the priceless heritage given to us by the men and women of the US naval and maritime services in the creation of a great nation under God and beholden to no one on this earth.”

As I was scribbling, a fellow tourist surprised me saying he saw action 60 years ago. Wow! Before me was a venerable war veteran come to relive the years of living dangerously, if only in the memory. We introduced each other. I said I was taking down notes for a column in a local paper back in the home country. Of all the battles Basil Johnson USN had fought, the one he is most proud of was liberating the Philippines because it was something he could “see and understand instead of the faceless killing of [the] enemy” as in shooting down kamikazes. Deep gratitude is in order to him and the kindred souls, living or dead, who freed our country from the Japanese invaders.

Sadly, history would have us realize that the brutality of the Japanese soldiers was matched by the damage of the US bombs that drove the Japanese but also pulverized Manila. Parallel of Iraq? A brutal dictator was ousted all right, but the country turned up war-ravaged. As one sage would have it, “Everybody loses in war.” But that's another story.

YORKTOWN makes for a sentimental journey to the men and women who fought in WW II and accords pride in their families. The three Hangar Bays evoke memories that bless and burn with its display of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Enlisted Combat Aircrew Roll of Honor, and the Carrier Aviation Hall of Fame. It is interesting that of the thirty WW II Fast Carriers operations—the events recorded in mounted frames—the Philippines was mentioned eleven times.

In Hangar Bay Two is a Flight Simulator for those “who want to let [their] imagination take flight for a 5-minute ride on an F/A-18.” This one was for my grandson, eleven-year old James Raphael, to experience a make-believe battle ride, this grandmother hoping that such a ride would never be for real for him in years to come.

Hangar Bay One has a Memorial Theater where we viewed the Academy Award-winning documentary, The Fighting Lady , again stirring another hope that all instruments of war, like YORKTOWN , be turned into museums or museum artifacts now and forever.

As I've written in a previous column about the submarine USS REQUIN , let me conclude with a self-revealing quote from Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “The soldier above all other people prays for peace.” Those are the catchwords in the brochure of the MacArthur Memorial Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. Certainly food for thought for all warmongers, hawks, and all those with militarist orientation. (Comments to juliaclagoc@yahoo.com )