Check this out: it's a highway interchange built over water. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing before.

UPDATE: While I'm posting strange stuff, this weekend is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Midway was one of the three turning point battles of WWII, along with Stalingrad and the Second Battle of El Alamein.

It's been said that before Midway the Japanese never had a defeat and after Midway they never had a victory. That isn't true. Coral Sea was a strategic defeat for Japan, even though American naval losses were greater. And there were a couple of battles in Iron Bottom Sound (e.g. the Battle of Savo Island) which were Japanese victories.

What Midway represents is the transition from the early Japanese juggernaut to a period of stalemate that lasted until the American shipbuilding program started pouring out warships in the last half of 1943. Midway stabilized the war and gave America time to rebuild and repair.

And that's more than enough reason to celebrate it, and honor the brave men (on both sides!) who fought there.

UPDATE: Since I'm linking to random Google Maps stuff, here's another one. That's Battery Russell in Fort Stevens, near Astoria Oregon. You can't really tell from the sky, but there's a pretty big underground bunker there, below and to the left of those two half-hexagons.

The half-hexagons were were two disappearing guns were mounted. They would be lowered to load them, then they would elevate to fire.

In June 1942, Battery Russell engaged in a gun duel with I-25. Not much of a duel; no one hit anything important. The worst destruction at Fort Stevens was the backstop at the baseball field. A pillbox took a near miss, and one Japanese round broke a buried wiring cable.

It was the only time in the war when a military installation in CONUS was attacked by the Axis.

A couple of times when I was a kid, we went camping at Fort Stevens and visited Battery Russell. It was fun for a little kid to run around and explore the place. (It would have been better if we'd had flashlights.)

UPDATE: Here are a couple of ground-level pictures. They match my memory, which is pretty amazing since I was last there maybe 50 years ago.

I can't find anything online that says that Battery Russell fired on I-25. I think my brother told me that. I wonder if he made it up? Or maybe my memory is wrong, after all.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 02:19 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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