New crews.
New planes.
New missions.
The carrier force would be fighting again within months.
Guadalcanal began in August.
The Pacific offensive accelerated.
Torpedo Squadron Eight would eventually be reconstituted in new form.
Names continue institutionally even after people change.
This can seem cold.
It is also how military organizations survive.
The name carries memory forward while the living continue the mission.
For Japan, the ending was the beginning of a long strategic retreat
Not immediately.
Not smoothly.
Japan still attacked.
Still won local engagements.
Still inflicted devastating casualties.
Yet Midway destroyed a major offensive carrier force.
The initiative became increasingly difficult to recover.
Guadalcanal would deepen the attrition.
American production would surge.
Submarines would strangle shipping.
New carriers would appear in numbers Japan could not match.
The June 4 victory did not win the war.
It changed the conditions under which the rest would be fought.
That is what a true turning point does.
The torpedo squadron's place in that turning point should remain precise
They attacked.
They failed to hit.
They were destroyed.
Their attacks contributed to repeated defensive pressure.
Other torpedo squadrons added more.
Dive bombers later exploited a complex tactical opportunity.
The carriers burned.
No need for mythology.
The truth already contains everything.
Courage.
Failure.
Chance.
Technology.
Sacrifice.
Victory.
Grief.
Learning.
Few stories offer more.
Return to the Moment Before the First Zero Fires
Fifteen TBD Devastators are low over the Pacific.
Their formation is heading toward the Japanese fleet.
There is no fighter escort overhead.
The aircraft are slow.
The torpedoes beneath them are uncertain weapons.
Waldron knows he has found the carriers.
His pilots know the attack has to begin.
Behind each pilot sits a radioman-gunner looking toward the sky.
Then the first Zero turns down.
At that instant, the later victory at Midway does not exist.
The burning carriers do not exist.
The history books do not exist.
Only the attack exists.
The enemy.
The weapon.
The men.
That is where their courage should be judged.
Not by what happened afterward.
By what they knew then.
The Zeros Dive
The rear guns begin firing.
One Devastator is hit.
Another disappears.
The formation continues.
The carriers turn.
Anti-aircraft fire rises.
The TBDs descend lower.
There is almost no room beneath them.
A pilot can see spray from the ocean.
The carrier grows larger.
The torpedo must still be released correctly.
The gunner keeps shooting.
The pilot holds the aircraft steady enough to attack.
Another fighter crosses.
Another TBD goes down.
The squadron becomes smaller every few seconds.
No replacement aircraft appear.
No fighters rescue them.
No order tells them the mission has become too dangerous.
The attack continues until there is almost nothing left to continue it.
One Aircraft Reaches Its Release
Gay releases.
The torpedo enters the water.
Whether it has any chance of hitting no longer matters to his immediate survival.
His TBD has been damaged too badly.
The ocean rises.
The aircraft comes down.
The gunner behind him will not survive.
Gay gets free.
The squadron that existed minutes earlier is now scattered across the sea.
Above, Japanese fighters search for other threats.
The carriers remain afloat.
By every immediate measure, Japan has won this engagement completely.
This is the point where a storyteller might be tempted to say the sacrifice has opened the way for the dive bombers.
Not yet.
The future remains uncertain.
More Americans still have to make decisions.
VT-6 Arrives
The Japanese defense attacks again.
More Devastators go down.
Still no torpedo success.
Then VT-3.
More Zeros.
More losses.
More ships turning.
More pilots looking low.
More ammunition expended.
More minutes consumed.
The Japanese defensive system keeps winning local fights.
It does not realize that another threat is approaching high above.
This is how disaster sometimes develops.
Success in the wrong layer hides danger in another.
McClusky Sees Arashi
The destroyer is racing northeast.
He makes the inference.
A ship moving that urgently is probably returning to something important.
He follows.
The empty ocean ends.
Carriers appear.
Another chain of human decisions begins.
Leslie's Dauntlesses Arrive Too
The Japanese fleet below is suddenly exposed to an attack it has not positioned itself to stop effectively.
Dive brakes open.
SBDs tip forward.
The sea rotates in the pilots' windshields.
Carriers fill the view.
Bombs drop.
The geometry that doomed the Devastators now favors the Americans.