A year later on June 20, 1966, four Midway-based A-1H Skyraiders, old-fashioned piston-engine ground attack planes, was on a search-and-rescue mission when they were warned of two approaching MiG-17s. The Skyraiders flew in circles hugging the side of a mountain for cover. The MiGs swooped down spitting cannon shells at the lead Skyraider—but the two A-1s behind him pulled up and raked the jets with 20-millimeter cannons, shooting one down in one of the unlikelier kills of the conflict.On March 20, 1945 the shipyard in Newport News, Virginia launched what would remain for a decade the largest warship on the planet. Named USS Midway after the decisive World War II carrier battle, she would be commissioned September 8 just a few weeks after the Japanese surrender.(This first appeared several months ago.)Few of the over four-thousand-man complement departing on Midway’s first patrol could have imagined that same ship—admittedly, in drastically modified form—would be sailing into combat forty-six years later, her deck laden with supersonic jet fighters.Midway was joined a month later by New York-built sistership USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (or ‘Rosey’), the first U.S. carrier to be named after a former U.S. president. The last ship of the class, USS Coral Sea, was launched in 1947.