Classic Aircraft Carrier Color: USS Midway Flight Ops 1950s - F2H Banshee AJ Savage Nuclear Capable

The USS Midway, launched during World War II but too late to serve, was the first of three aircraft carriers of the post-Essex Class known as the Midway Class carriers. The Navy used USS Midway as part of its strategic nuclear weapons task. Some aircraft assigned to USS Midway had nuclear weapon delivery capability. This great Kodachrome color movie footage shows piston-engine, jet augmented, North American AJ Savage bombers and McDonnell F2H Banshee jet fighters. One of the AJ Savage bombers lands without benefit of tailhook, rolling into the barrier and damaging a Grumman F9F parked on the front of the deck. You can see the tailhook depart the AJ as it touches down at about 02:21 into the video. The straight deck of the Midway as seen in these movie clips was changed to angled decking for safer recovery and launching of aircraft in a major rebuild between June 1955 and September 1957, placing this footage sometime before mid-1955. Some of the F2H Banshees in the film are painted Navy blue; others featu