![]() ![]() Not to be outdone, a concluding anchoring off the French Riviera topped off Midway’s first deployment before her return to Virginia. Port call to Genoa in northern Italy offered tours to Pisa, and a call at Naples also yielded outings to the Vatican and Rome as well as the wonders of Pompeii. ![]() The next visit to Malta, a strategic island in the central Mediterranean, reminded Midway’s crew that World War II was just two years past, as the ravages of the heavy bombing were still prevalent. The exoticness of North Africa next beckoned with visits to the Moroccan port of Tangier and Bone (present-day Annaba) in Algeria. Her first stopover was, naturally, the British bastion of Gibraltar, at the western entrance of the Mediterranean and gateway to the Middle Sea. Homeported in Norfolk, Va., she made the Mediterranean Sea her watery beat for the next seven years. ![]() Mid way d eparted for her first official overseas deployment in 1947. Ports of call were always welcome and, for many, created the best memories for times on the bounding main. Sometimes a port was merely a gateway to other, larger venues inland like capital cities or safaris for sailors eager to experience a new world of sights and sounds. Visits to foreign lands, regardless of region, invariably involved restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and vendors hawking all sorts of trinkets. Hence, a stopover at an exotic coastal haven is a tonic for recharging and relaxing after the monotony of extended cruising. Carriers are notorious for spending weeks and sometime months at sea. ![]() Since Midway was so large, many port visits required her to anchor well from shore, requiring the ship’s boats, or local water taxis, to travel to and from the ship. Known in Navy parlance as “port calls,” the visits occurred during scheduled routine deployments and wartime emergencies. Over an active career of nearly 50 years, the USS Midway dropped anchor in various overseas harbors throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. ![]()
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