Oh, no! Not again!
Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the famous USS Midway Library’s Scuttlebutt. There has been a concerted effort to find relics from a small part of that wonderful ship’s history and get them back into the context from which they came. LTJG Winky is part of it, since he was a means of making numbing sameness of months underway a little fun. He has lived in a variety of closets over the last half century, and it seems like he would enjoy a return to the ship from which he came. The search for relics goes on. Wait till we find that brown Naugahyde thing that used to hold the combination to the nuclear stuff! We can still neither ‘confirm, nor deny!’ In the meantime, when in San Diego, visit a great ship in a wonderful town. She is something very special, and with the right hand-puppet, you will have a grand time!
– Vic
LTJG Winky, Intel Briefer
Straight out of Intel School, ENS JR Reddig volunteered to serve as the Intelligence Officer for VF-151 Vigilantes on USS Midway from 1978– 1980. During that time the Navy’s Foreign Legation spent a lot of time floating around the Indian Ocean, in part because of the year-long Iranian hostage crisis. As a bachelor, JR lived on Midway, even when the ship was in port. Despite the crowd, the noise, and living in the lower rack of BK-4, a four-man compartment, he felt and still feels the Midway Magic.
While he was assigned to USS Midway, he wrote Nick Danger, Third Eye as a serial with the goal of having an installment published every day the Midway Multiplex would print.
JR Reddig explains, “The trick was to try to do something we all knew about in a unique environment. The Pac Man game machine in the Dirty Shirt Wardroom was worth several issues and plot changes. It was written in the same way we did operational things. In between flight operations or in a spare half hour between one thing and another (the only other things were eating, sleeping, or working out), I would jam some paper in an IBM SelElectric typewriter, bang on it for a while and then run it down to the newsletter guys. There was, I heard later, some mild controversy over the idea that one of the squadron guys was generating the continuing story, but RADM Bob Kirksey apparently thought it was good for morale or something, and I tried to stay a bootstrap away from anything that would get in the way of good order and discipline. Apparently, it worked. Racy enough for the time without being too disruptive. But to a crew used to the Philippines, we were indeed the Navy’s Foreign Legion in perpetual motion.”
While I was there, JR brought out his briefing partner, LTJG Winky, As JR’s, alter-ego, Winky has been known to pick barfights with Marines by calling them jarheads. JR has donated Winky to the Midway Museum. – Pat Alderman
iMidway’s Pat Alderman at JR’s farm in Culpeper County Virginia, 29 April 2021.
After interviewing JR, at Phil Eakin’s recommendation, I realized I wanted o own my own copy of Nick Danger, Third Eye. I queried the Battle of Midway Bookstore. John Bing located a copy of the book in good condition, e-mailed me a copy of the cover so I knew that the book was in good shape, and then mailed it to me.
LTJG Winky heads for the Midway Museum Library.
After the book arrived, I emailed JR, inviting myself and my husband to visit his farm, about an hour away in Culpeper County, Virginia, so that he could sign my book. He agreed and on 29 April 2021 I had the privilege of spending two hours getting the book signed, listening to some wonderful sea stories, and meeting the man behind 40s era detective Nick Danger who thinks that Tokyo is really Far East LA.
While I was there, JR brought out his briefing partner, LTJG Winky, As JR’s, alter-ego, Winky has been known to pick barfights with Marines by calling them jarheads. JR has donated Winky to the Midway Museum. – Pat Alderman
Copyright 2021 Pat Alderman
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