From the S&S archives: Drydock to cure Midway's minor ills

YOKOSUKA NB, Japan — It has put thousands of miles of Arabian Sea and Indian and Pacific Oceans beneath its hull. It is time for a respite and well-deserved rest. So there it sits, high and dry, the 64,000-ton floating city that is a home sway from home for sailors and Marines.

The aircraft carrier Midway will soon have three and a half decades of service to its country under its keel, which now rests on blocks in drydock number six at this naval base on Tokyo Bay.

Outperforming carriers that are half its age, the gray leviathan is being pampered and painted, remodeled and refitted for 60 days as the crew and Japanese ship yard workers scramble deep into the holds and high up the mast giving "the old girl" a minor face lift.