At 03:30 A.M. the pilots of Torpedo 8 . . . gathered in the ready room, there to sit through a critical dawn. As they entered the low-ceilinged, white-walled steel room, their practiced eyes turned first toward the illuminated 3 ft.-by-3 ft. screen above the teletype machine. Projected from the machine below was the last message that had been received: four PBY patrol planes had made a moonlight torpedo attack on a Japanese occupation force near Midway at 1 A.M. As they settled in their comfortable leather chairs they hauled out their flight charts and copied off the data that had been chalked in the neat columns on the blackboard up front: wind, course, speed, visibility, dew point, nearest land, etc. But the teletype remained silent, and soon most of them had pushed the arm button on their chairs so that they could spend the remainder of their watch in their usual semireclining position. Whatever tension there was relaxed with them.
After daybreak, when it was announced that the ship was secure and they were dismissed by the Skipper, Abbie, as usual, moaned, "I'm hungry," and they went to the ward room for breakfast, where Rusty Kenyon ordered his usual plate of beans, for which he got his usual ribbing from the rest of the boys. By 8, the sun was up in a brilliant sky and most of them were back in their quarters. Scarcely had they got themselves settled for their after-breakfast rest, when the loudspeaker barked for their attention: "All pilots report to ready room." When they got to the ready room they found a new message of the teletype screen: "Midway was attacked this morning by Japanese aircraft and bombers." There was a scraping of wood on wood as each man jerked open the drawer built into the bottom of his chair, and a flurry of commotion as they hauled out helmets, goggles, gloves, and the pistols and hunting knives which the Skipper had made "must" equipment for them against a forced jungle landing. Then they began to copy off the latest flight data from the blackboard.
Presently the teletype began tapping again. The pencils stopped. And all eyes turned up to the screen to read the message, letter by letter, as it was projected: "E-N-E-M-Y N-A-V-A-L U-N-I-T-S S-I-G-H-T-E-D W-I-T-H-I-N S-T-R-I-K-I-N-G D-I-S-T-A-N-C-E. E-X-P-E-C-T-E-D S-T-R-I-K-I-N-G T-I-M-E 0-9-0-0." Then, after a pause, of almost breathless silence: "L-O-O-K-S L-I-K-E T-H-I-S I-S I-T."
Pencils began to scratch again as the pilots put every last bit of information onto their flight charts. Ellie Ellison leaned over toward Tex Gay with a broad grin. "Good luck," he whispered, as he extended his hand across the aisle to meet Gay's. "Pilots man your planes," ordered the loudspeaker. As the boys rose in silence, the Skipper addressed them: "I think they'll change their course. If you check your navigation, don't think I'm getting lost, just follow me. I'll take you to 'em." As they hurried form the room and climbed up the ladder to the flight deck, not another word was spoken.
Their silence was the grim silence of a football team that has been given the next play by the quarterback and is moving up from the huddle to the line of scrimmage. Before stepping onto the ladder, Tex Gay sidestepped to the sick bay nearby and picked up a tourniquet, which he stuffed into his pocket. When they got on deck, their planes were already there in neat rows. The mechanics were busy and the whine of the inertia starters drowned out the clatter of their trotting feet on the deck. Tucked neatly under the belly of each Douglas Devastator was a white-nosed torpedo–a pickle, as the boys preferred to call them. When they saw the pickles, the boys forgot about the Japs for a split second, for never before had they wheeled their Devastators off the deck with a live pickle in tow. Thus, as they hit the seats of their planes, they were giving more thought to the load they were carrying than to the enemy they were going to carry it to. When the bull horn blared, "Twelve-minute delay in take-off," Whitey Moore climbed out on the folded wing of his plane and called to Gay who was in front of him and due to be the first of the group to take off: "Tex, if you'll test the wind, I'll test the weight." At 09:12, a stand-by order was shouted and if anything else was said it was lost in the roar of the spinning motors. One after the other the signalman waved off the scouts, the fighters and the dive bombers. Finally, Torpedo 8 was waved up and Tex Gay took his plane off with no difficulty.
After they rendezvoused in the sky, the Skipper took the lead and the 15 planes of Torpedo 8 fell into the prearranged formation in which the Skipper had chosen to take them on their first adventure. Flying in six sections of two and a seventh section of three, with Gay bringing up the rear, the skipper led them on a course south of west at 300 ft.
After an uneventful hour, the skippers voice broke the radio silence: "There's a fighter on our tail." What he saw proved to be a cruiser plane flying at about 1,000 ft. It flew by without paying any apparent attention, but the Skipper and boys knew it had probably radioed an alarm back to the Jap fleet and that they would doubtless be met by a reception committee of fighters.
They kept to their course and the flight continued uneventful until the motor of the plane Plywood Teats was flying , in the last section, began to spurt oil. When the windshield was obscured, Plywood reached outside with a rag to wipe it off. As he did so he transferred the stick to his left hand. Unwittingly, his thumb pressed the trigger button on the stick and sent eight or ten rounds whizzing past Abercrombie's plane. Quick to understand what had happened, Abbie mopped his brow in mock panic and then grinned broadly at Plywood, who appeared to be roaring with laughter.
Almost another hour had passed since they had seen the Jap plane when two columns of smoke were sighted beyond the horizon. The Skipper dropped down low and the boys followed. Now they roared forward at torpedo-attack level, barely skimming the waves. When they burst over the horizon, it looked as if the entire Jap fleet was before them. They identified the carrier Soryu and a cruiser as the burning vessels set afire the day before, and counted in all three carriers, about six cruiser and ten destroyers. The ships were moving away from Midway, as the Skipper had guessed, and the carriers were loaded with planes which apparently were being refueled and rearmed. The Skipper immediately broke radio silence to send his contact report back to the U. S. carrier, giving position and strength.
Then the action the Skipper and the boys had been waiting for began. Anti-aircraft fire went up from the ships and the surface guns began hurling explosive shells. Some 30 Zero fighters that had been circling high above the fleet, awaiting their arrival, began to dive. But the Skipper paid no attention to them. He wiggled his wings, as a signal for the boys to follow, and opened up the throttle.
As the Zeros swooped down on them, the Squadron's rear gunners opened up, making a terrific racket of machine-gun fire, punctuated by the louder, less rapid explosions of the cannon on the Zeros. By the time they were within eight miles of the Jap fleet they were caught in a barrage of fire from the ships.
When the first plane plunged into the water the Skipper, apparently forgetting to press his intercockpit communication button, was heard asking his radioman, Dobbs, in the rear seat: "Was that a Zero?" If Dobbs answered his voice was not heard, but in any case it was not a Zero. It was the first plane of Squadron 8 to go down.
When the second went down, Radioman Bob Huntington spoke form the back of Gay's plane. "Let's go back and help him, sir," he said. "To hell with that," Gay blurted, "we've got a job to do." Then the Skipper got it. His left gas tank hit, his plane literally burst into flame. Tex Gay could see him stand up and try to get out but it was no use. The waves that had been lapping at his undercarriage claimed him and Radioman Dobbs. Dobbs, a veteran enlisted man, had been ordered back to San Diego to become a radio instructor for the duration, after this engagement.
The barrage from the Jap ships grew deadlier. Surface shells, aimed to hit the ocean just ahead of them, were throwing up spouts of water which licked the bellies of the planes. Anti-aircraft filled the air with acrid black smoke. One by one, the planes of Torpedo 8 went down. Flying so close to the water, they might as well have been crashing into a stone wall when they hit it. Tex Gay's mind flashed back to his childhood for a comparison with what was going on around him. There was a far-off day when he had tossed orange peelings in the water from a speedboat. It reminded him of that. The planes hit the water and they were gone, as though they were moving in the opposite direction.
There was one plane to Gay's left, close by, and another in front of him and below the nose of his plane. He lowered the nose to see what plane it was and it was gone. When he looked to the left, that plane was gone too. Now there was only Gay's plane left. The Skipper had lost his hope of "a favorable tactical situation." "The worst" had "come to the worst," and there was "only one plane left to make a final run-in." tex Gay doesn't remember whether at the moment the Skipper's message actually flooded through his mind again, but he had seen the Skipper die and he was determined "to go in and get a hit."
Then the voice of Radioman Bob Huntington came into his ears over the intercom from the rear seat. "They got me," it said. "Are you hurt bad?" asked Gay. "Can you move?" There was no answer. Tex took his eyes off the waves long enough to see that Huntington was lifeless, his head limp against the cockpit. As he turned back, he felt a stab in his upper left arm. The hole in his jacket sleeve told him what had happened. He shifted the stick to his left hand, ripped his sleeve, pressed a machine-gun slug from the wound with his thumb. It seemed like something worth saving, so he sought to put it in the pocket of his jacket. When he found his pocket openings held shut by his safety belt and parachute straps and life jacket, he popped it into his mouth.
He kicked his rudder to make his plane slip and skid so as to avoid the Zeros. He was heading straight for the carrier that the Skipper had picked out. The ship turned hard to starboard, seeking to put it's bow forward and avoid his torpedo. He swung to the right and aimed for the port bow, about a quarter length back. When he pushed the button to release his torpedo nothing happened. Apparently the electrical releasing equipment had been knocked out. Since his left arm was practically useless from the bullet and a shrapnel wound in his hand, he held the stick between his knees and released the torpedo with the emergency lever. By now he was only 800 yd., from the ship and close to the water. He managed to execute a flipper, turning past the bridge of the carrier and clearing the bow by about 10 ft. As he passed over the flight deck he saw Jap crewmen running in all directions to avoid his crashing plane. He zoomed up and over but as he sought to turn back, four Zeros dived on him. An explosive bullet knocked out his left rudder pedal and he careened into the sea, a quarter of a mile from the Jap carrier.
The impact slammed his hood shut tightly and the plane began to sink. He opened the hood and rose to the surface. As he reached the surface, he heard the explosion of his torpedo striking home on the Jap carrier. Floating beside him was a black rubber seat cushion and a deflated rubber boat. Apparently the Jap bullets had broken the straps which held them secure. Afraid that the Zeros would dive again and machine-gun him, Tex held the seat cushion over his head. Two cruisers steamed close by him and a destroyer all but ran him down. The white-clad sailors on the destroyer saw him and ran to the deckside to point him out. However, he was unmolested. In about ten minutes the dive bombers from his carrier, apprised of the Jap fleet's location by the Skipper's contact report, swooped in. As they exhausted their bomb loads, more came in. The Jap fleet was in utter confusion, with most of its air arm trapped on the decks of the carriers where they had been refueling. For two hours the bombers dived, sending their destructive loads into ship after ship.
Thus, with all of its 15 planes destroyed and all but one of its pilots killed in its first engagement, Torpedo Squadron 8 had done its part to rout, for the first time in the war, a Japanese fleet. It had also kept the planes which were refueling on the carrier's deck from taking off in time to meet the attack. Had the Skipper not played his hunch with his faithful boys following his wake, the planes that were caught refueling on the decks of the Jap carriers might have had time to take the air again to reverse the tide of battle . . .
--Sidney L. James
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S.E. Smith
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