Dianne Wilkie, Safety – January 2023

Dianne Wilkie has been a member of Midway’s safety and security team since 2004 and has nearly 6,000 volunteer hours. She thoroughly enjoys being in a military environment and interacting with the guests to give them a better understanding of what it was like to serve on an aircraft carrier.

A retired U.S. Army vocational nurse whose family has roots in the military dating back to the Spanish American War, Dianne has proved invaluable. Dianne can be seen year-round standing on the pier in the early morning hours directing guests attending military events. In addition to her work as an event safety, Dianne has undertaken the daunting task of issuing updated 2023 team parking permits. After issuing the permits, Dianne often comes back to the safety office to ensure all the electronic files are updated.

“Dianne is a highly dedicated and motivated safety team member,” said Dominick Boccia, Midway director of security. “Her dedication and hard work are a great asset to the museum.”

This work ethic is not unusual for Dianne, who spent nearly 15 years as a registered nurse in the postpartum ward at Naval Medical Center San Diego following her retirement from the Army.

Cole Rahn, Ship Restoration – February 2023

Cole Rahn is a relative newcomer to Midway, having started with the ship restoration team in 2019. However, he hit the deck running. Before the end of his first year on board, he also joined the museum’s outreach team. 

Possessing tremendous enthusiasm for military history, coupled with experience in restoring vintage bicycles and vehicles, makes Cole a perfect fit for the museum’s ship restoration team. 

Having just celebrated his 24th birthday, the restoration team considers Cole their true “youngster” working on museum projects ranging from Ready Room 8 refurbishment to basic equipment. He’s also first in line to tackle special projects that support education and outreach programs or engineering contractors. He has already amassed nearly 1,000 volunteer hours.

“Cole is a dedicated young man who puts his heart, soul and hands into any project he is given or what he finds needs to get done,” said Len Santiago, Midway’s chief engineer. “He represents the best of the best of our young adult volunteers today.”

Cole is pursuing a career in aircraft maintenance and technology.

Matt Doidge, Docent and IT – March 2023

Matt Doidge wears two volunteer hats on Midway. Since 2016, he has contributed more than 2,300 hours to both the docent team and the IT department.

He not only assists with the docent continuing education and docent training programs by ensuring the Zoom and presentation equipment is ready for the session, but he also solicits information on docent staffing and then volunteers on the days we are short-staffed. 

“Matt has been an outstanding docent,” said Jim Reily, Midway’s director of docents. “He is always willing to step up to the plate to help whenever we need it.”

 Matt has also made significant contributions to the museum’s IT department. With his expertise, he performed a risk analysis that led to the upgrade of the ship’s network. Using similar techniques, he also helped identify other infrastructure shortcomings, which are currently being addressed. 

“Thanks to skilled volunteers like Matt, our department can deliver top-notch solutions to stakeholders and beyond,” said Shawn Granen, the museum’s IT director. “I am extremely thankful to have Matt as part of our team.”

For those interested in becoming a USS Midway Museum volunteer, more information along with the volunteer application can be found www.midway.org/give-join/volunteers

World War II was in its final year when New York native Herb Alberg was finally old enough to enlist. Joining the Navy, he started his active duty service in December 1944. Following basic training and follow-on instruction, Herb received orders to the Navy’s newest, largest and most advanced aircraft carrier – the USS Midway (CV-41).

Destined for the Pacific Theater to support the pending invasion of the Japanese Islands, Herb and his fellow Midway sailors prepared the carrier for its commissioning and continuing the fight. However, by the summer of 1945, with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war came to an abrupt end. The Japanese signed the official documents of surrender eight days before Midway joined the fleet.

“I was on the ship when she was commissioned on Sept. 10, 1945,” said Herb, who recently celebrated his 96th birthday. “It was just after the war was over, so we never went to the Pacific. We stayed on the East Coast and operated as part of the Atlantic Fleet.”

Trained as a radarman, Herb’s experience on Midway was focused mainly on training and “breaking in” the Navy’s newest warship. He was even on board when Midway was tasked to participate in Operation Frostbite, a test voyage in early 1946 into subarctic conditions in Canadian waters of the North Atlantic to evaluate the feasibility of conducting carrier flight operations in extreme cold.

A few months later, with the American armed forces drawing down following the war, Herb was discharged after serving only a year and a half.

“I served for the duration of the war, plus,” said Herb. “Most times, you enlist in the Navy for two years or four years, but that’s the way it was back then. Duration plus meant – whenever they let you go. By June 1946, they let me go.”

Herb left Midway that summer and never saw the ship again. That all changed in early 2023, when, after nearly 77 years, he once again walked the deck of the ship where he served as one of its original crewmembers.

Known as a plankowner, Herb was excited about finally coming back to where his service in the fleet started and ended.

“It was an opportunity,” said Herb, who visited Midway with several family members. “If I had a bucket list, this would have been on the bucket list. I don’t know how many more years I’ve got left, so that’s why I really made the trip with my family so that they can remember.”

Although Midway was his home for nearly a year, Herb was still impressed with the massive size of the carrier.

“There were so many changes on the ship,” said Herb, who made the trip to San Diego from his home on New York’s Long Island. “Seeing how large the ship really is. I didn’t take notice because I was on her every day. I sailed on her. I was really looking forward to coming back to see her again.”

A Navy brat, Joellen Drag Oslund lived all over the world growing up. A few years here and there – Illinois, Maryland, Puerto Rico and the Philippines – was an accepted way of life as a kid. Finally, after settling down in California’s Castro Valley as a teenager, she decided to attend college close to home at Cal State Hayward graduating in 1972 with a degree in political science. 

Although undecided coming out of university, she knew she wanted her career to be something out of the ordinary. One day, a friend who was in the Naval Reserves showed her a naval message and said, “I think you should go for this.”

“Chief of Naval Operations, Elmo Zumwalt, had opened the Navy flight training program to women just as I was graduating from college,” remembered Joellen. “I realized it was the something different that I longed for.”

In June 1973, Joellen entered Navy flight school. A trailblazer for women in military aviation was born.

Joellen’s story is chronicled in the recently released book “Wings of Gold: The Story of the First Women Naval Aviators.” Authored by Beverly Weintraub, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the book tells the true accounts of six extraordinary women who made history in a naval aviation experiment in the early 1970s.

Joellen and Beverly conducted a book signing on the hangar deck of the USS Midway Museum sharing the tale of the challenges and achievements of the pioneering women who fought to break through the barriers of a historically male-dominated profession.

“There are gaps in the historical record that need to be filled, not only to give people the recognition they deserve, but because important lessons from the past are too easily forgotten,” said Beverly, who is also a pilot. “This is especially true when the story involves women.”

According to Beverly, the debate of whether women have the upper-body strength, temperament and mental toughness to fly military aircraft was answered by the more than 1,000 female pilots recruited by the Army Air Corps to fly non-combat operational, test and support missions during World War II. For Joellen and her five female groundbreaking classmates, they had to confront those same doubts and answer those same questions all over again.

“It is so gratifying to know that the efforts of the first six of us really has made a difference for women in the Navy,” said Joellen, who became the first women to complete the Navy’s helicopter flight training program and the fourth women to get her Navy wings in April 1974. “I’m pretty sure we far exceeded the expectations of most Navy leaders of the time, and I’m very proud of that. As a group and individually, we did very well in every aircraft and environment in which we found ourselves.”

Joellen, who was presented her wings from her father, retired Navy Cmdr. Theodore Drag, went on to fly CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters in her first fleet assignment with Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 3 (HC-3) in San Diego. However, after reporting to the squadron, she found that existing federal legislation limited Navy women to only shore-duty billets. Thus, Joellen was unable to land her helicopter on Navy ships at sea. This restriction would not only hamper her professional development as a pilot, but also hinder her opportunities for promotion.

In 1977, Joellen joined a class-action lawsuit against the Navy, Owens v. Brown, that aimed to overturn Section 6015 of Title 10 that kept women in the Navy from serving and operating on ships. The following year, the District Court in Washington, D.C. ruled in favor of Joellen and the other women in the lawsuit and in the fall of 1978, women were finally allowed to be assigned to shipboard billets.

“As soon as I got to my first operational duty assignment, I realized that 10 USC Sec 6015 was going to be an insurmountable barrier to any hopes of a normal career path,” said Joellen, who would later marry Dwyane Oslund, also a Navy helicopter pilot. “There was never any question in my mind that it needed to be challenged. I was gratified that we prevailed and the law was found to be unconstitutional. But in the end, though, the ruling was just the first battle in a long series of battles that only truly ended in 1993 with its complete repeal.”

Beverly’s book not only recounts Joellen’s journey, but the accomplishments of each of the first six women naval aviators.

“One thing that blows me away is how humble they are about their accomplishments,” said Beverly. “They were, among other things, the first woman to solo a tactical jet, the first female Hurricane Hunter, the first woman to command an aviation squadron, the first military pilot mom and a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the combat exclusion.”

Joellen transitioned to the Naval Reserve in 1979 and was assigned to Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 9 (HC-9) where she became the first combat search and rescue helicopter aircraft commander. In 2017, she was inducted into the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame.

“I didn’t really realize at the time that everything I did was a first,” said Joellen, who rose to the rank of captain before retiring from the Navy in 1998. “To me it was just the logical progression of qualifications that every pilot, woman or man, had to accomplish to compete for promotion. I feel so very honored to have helped pave the way for today’s women and the amazing opportunities and experiences they can now enjoy.”