This is one of the bitterest aspects of the Midway torpedo attacks.
The men were not merely flying obsolete aircraft against superior fighters.
They were risking their lives to deliver weapons that might fail even if the attack itself was executed well.
Later in the war, improvements would make American aerial torpedo attacks far more effective.
At Midway, those improvements had not arrived in time.
The men of VT-8 had the weapon they had.
Fifteen Aircraft Descended Toward the Japanese Formation
The Japanese combat air patrol spotted them.
Zeros began moving into position.
The TBD crews could see the enemy fighters.
Small shapes high above.
Then larger.
Then diving.
Waldron kept the squadron headed toward the carriers.
The Americans attempted to maintain enough formation structure to make their attack.
The Japanese carriers began evasive turns.
Destroyers and cruisers prepared anti-aircraft fire.
The problem for the torpedo bombers was geometry.
A carrier traveling at high speed does not remain where the pilot first sees it.
To hit, the torpedo must be released ahead of the ship's current position so the ship and weapon arrive at the same point.
If the carrier turns, the pilot may need to adjust.
All of this must happen while fighters are firing at him.
The attack required concentration at exactly the moment survival required evasive movement.
The TBD forced the pilot to choose between two bad options.
Hold the line and become easier to shoot.
Maneuver violently and lose the attack.
Waldron and his men held the line.
The Zeros Reached Them Before the Torpedo Bombers Reached the Carriers
One American aircraft was hit.
It fell toward the ocean.
Another took fire.
Then another.
The formation began disappearing piece by piece.
Rear gunners fired upward and behind.
They could see fighters coming through.
A gunner might fire until the Zero flashed past, then rotate toward another attack.
There were too many.
The Japanese fighter pilots had altitude and speed.
They could choose their approach.
The TBD crews were trapped close to the ocean.
A low-flying torpedo bomber has no room to dive away from danger.
Below it is water.
Above it is the enemy.
Ahead lies the carrier it must approach.
That is why the torpedo squadrons at Midway suffered so terribly.
Their mission placed them where Japanese fighters could use almost every advantage they possessed.
Waldron Kept Going
Commanding a squadron from the front means your decisions become visible.
If Waldron turned away, others might follow.
He did not.
His Devastator continued toward the Japanese fleet.
The squadron followed as long as aircraft remained.
Nobody aboard those planes knew how many would survive.
Nobody could count losses accurately in the middle of the attack.
A pilot could look left and see one aircraft.
Look back seconds later and see empty sky.
The radio might carry brief calls.
Gunfire overwhelmed everything.
Men were not thinking about the future historical meaning of their actions.
They were trying to keep aircraft level.
Trying to find carriers through tracers and fighters.
Trying to survive long enough to release.
One by one, they failed because the tactical conditions were brutally unequal.
Ensign George Gay Was One of the Pilots Still Moving Forward
Gay was young.
Like the others, he had trained for a mission that looked very different in practice from the neat attack diagrams shown in classrooms.
His gunner was Aviation Radioman Third Class Robert K. Huntington.
Together, they flew toward the Japanese carriers as the squadron around them disappeared.
Gay later described the intensity of the attack.
Zeros came in.
The TBD was hit.
Huntington continued firing.
The carrier ahead grew larger.
Gay maneuvered toward a release position.
The exact seconds are difficult to reconstruct perfectly because combat memory compresses and rearranges details.
The essential sequence is clear.
Gay pressed the attack.
Released his torpedo.
His Devastator was badly damaged.
He could not remain airborne.
The aircraft came down in the ocean.
Huntington did not survive.
Gay did.
For the moment.
Survival Meant Hiding in Plain Sight
The Japanese fleet was still nearby.
Aircraft moved overhead.
Ships passed through the surrounding waters.
Gay found himself alone in the Pacific.
He used part of his aircraft's flotation equipment or seat cushion as concealment while remaining in the water.
The detail became one of the most famous personal stories from Midway.
He could not fight anymore.
He could barely make himself invisible.
Japanese aircraft might strafe survivors.
A passing ship could capture him.
The battle continued above while Gay waited.
This is a strange position in war.
Minutes earlier he had been flying directly at an aircraft carrier.
Now his survival depended on not being noticed.
He remained in the water and watched history continue without him.
Torpedo Squadron Eight Had Ceased to Exist as an Attacking Formation
All fifteen Devastators were gone.
Waldron was dead.
Twenty-nine of the thirty men who had flown with the squadron had been killed.
Gay did not yet know that he was the only survivor.
He knew he had seen aircraft going down.
He knew the attack had been destroyed.
The full scale would become clear later.
For the moment, there was no squadron to reorganize.
No return formation.
No debriefing group approaching Hornet.
The carrier would wait for fifteen TBDs that would never land.
A squadron had launched in the morning.
By midmorning, its operational existence had been erased.
That alone would have made June 4 one of the darkest days in American naval aviation history.
Then more Devastators arrived.
Torpedo Squadron Six From Enterprise Came Next
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Lindsey led Torpedo Squadron Six from USS Enterprise.
The squadron had already experienced the strain of combat.
Lindsey himself had been injured before Midway when his aircraft went into the water during a landing accident.
He still flew the mission.
VT-6 found the Japanese fleet after VT-8's attack.
Again, the American torpedo bombers lacked effective fighter protection when they needed it most.
Again, Zeros descended.
Again, the Devastators were forced into low, slow attack runs.
The result was another slaughter.
Fourteen TBDs attacked.
Only a handful returned.
Ten were lost.
No successful torpedo hit was achieved.
Japanese defenses continued working.
Yet the attacks did not stop.
The carriers kept maneuvering.
Combat air patrol fighters kept descending, climbing, re-forming, and searching for the next threat.