USS Midway unveils new exhibit honoring engineers

This Memorial Day weekend, the USS Midway Museum is honoring the service members who worked aboard the steam-powered aircraft carrier when it was part of the fleet.

The museum unveiled a new exhibit , "Midway’s Engineers: Service, Sacrifice, & Everyday Life," to honor the aircraft carrier's engineers.

“They worked long hard hours, down below deck in harsh conditions, hardly ever seeing the light of day for days on end - 6 on and 6 off - doing all the hard, necessary work to make sure all the systems on the ship operate on a daily basis," said Mark Berlin of the USS Midway Museum.

Berlin, one of the project leaders, said it took less than a year to assemble the exhibit.

The exhibit showcases all the jobs that engineers take on such as boiler’s mate, machinist’s mate, and fire control man. Visitors will also see the dangers sailors face at sea.

“One of my favorite things is how we tell stories in this space. Here you see a letter being written home by one of the boiler techs aboard the ship. Just how life was for him as he worked here in the boiler department," said Berlin. “I’m very inspired by them. Watching them come back on board many years later and see how much it affected the trajectory of their life. It’s really meaningful.”

The exhibit is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.