Midway entered the 1990-91 Gulf War as one of the carriers operating in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. She was a critical asset within a wider carrier force that also operated from the Red Sea. Her last deployment included Operation Fiery Vigil, which evacuated about 20,000 military personnel and family members from Clark Air Base after Mount Pinatubo erupted. The return journey passed through Yokosuka, where she had spent much of her later career forward-deployed, and then Pearl Harbor and Seattle. Her preservation carries a story absent from the surviving Essex-class museums. Midway was built from wartime experience after treaty limits and mass-production constraints had fallen away.
Notable Point · 35:52-39:22
Gulf War service and the preserved carrier legacy
The closing career arc takes Midway from Desert Storm and Fiery Vigil to her museum role as the preserved example of a war-experience carrier design.