The Perch arrived at Midway early 1952. I have several B & W snapshots of it and one of them was taken from almost the exact spot as this one.

The sub was on a very special assignment as you might imagine from observing the huge, strange looking tank attached to the rear deck.  In the photo, the tank appears to be a sphere, but is  not.  It is a long, tubular capsule that we see from the rear or stern  section of the vessel.  Note the sailor standing in the entrance to the capsule about the middle of it.

It was something new the Navy was developing for use by Navy Frogmen.  We were at war in Korea and the Navy was in a hurry to train some special people to serve as badly needed "commando type units". They came to Midway Island for further training. This was definitely not a fun-and-games exercise.  It was dead serious business.  I mean!  The capsule contained all the equipment the frogmen would need to slip away from the sub, penetrate the enemy's defenses and do their job.

This training operation plan was for the sub to surface at some point outside the reef just long enough for the frogmen to open the capsule, get their gear, come ashore somewhere and penetrate our Island defenses. Next, they were to locate all vital facilities such as the power plant, AD building, CO's quarters, flight operations, aircraft, hangers, harbor assets, communications systems and then mark all of them with a special orange and yellow dye to indicate they had actually been there and  "destroyed" those facilities.  Then of course, return safely to the sub.

Now, please understand that this picture was taken AFTER THE FACT when the exercise was over.  Prior to this, no one on the Island knew anything about what was going to happen.  I'm not even sure that our Commanding Officer knew  anything about it in advance.  Suddenly, the Navy alerted us that a (friendly) commando-type attack on Midway was imminent.  We all went to battle stations with rifles, canteens, etc., but with NO LIVE AMMO.  My station was in a grove of scaveola bushes at the edge of the south beach about the middle of the east-west runway where I had an excellent view of the reef, lagoon and beach.  We were then told more about the operation and what to do if we sighted any of the "enemy".  All of us became quite tense.  I watched the reef and lagoon as closely as I could, but our local  seals gave us fits.  We could see them popping up here and there frequently, and of course we always thought they were the invaders.  Still, we were all sure we could catch those guys immediately when they came ashore.  I mean. How could anyone slip across some twenty to thirty yards of snow white coral sand without being detected?  We thought we were pretty good.

One day passed.  One night.  Another day.  Another night.  Then sometime in the early hours of the following day, the invaders hit.  They made fools of us all.  They did everything they had planned except one thing.  One of the original plans had the frogmen capturing our CO and taking him back to the sub, but that was nixed so it wasn't done.  However, everything else was, and then some.  Afterward came the attack analysis, and of course, the get-together with the sub's crew at the EM Club.  There things really got interesting.

The "enemy" didn't rub it in too much, and besides, we had a pretty good excuse for not seeing them even though the weather was not all that bad. We missed them because of the seals.  Actually, some of our defenders really had discovered them but thought they were the seals again.  When they heard we had mistaken them for "seals" they howled with laughter.  "Yeah! That's right!  You guys looked just like our seals".  More laughter.  Seals indeed!   It may have been a big joke to those men but the brass took an entirely different view.  To quote a very famous line from Paul Harvey, "Now you know the rest of the story". NAVY SEALS.