Then-Ensign George Gay, U.S. Navy Reserve, was the pilot of one of the 15 Douglas TBD-1 Devastators of Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT-8) that took off from USS Hornet (CV 8) the morning of June 4, 1942 for a strike on the Japanese fleet during the Battle of Midway. Another detachment of Torpedo 8, comprised of a few of the new TBF Avenger torpedo-bombers, was flying that day from Midway island itself. Fourteeen TBD-1s of Torpedo Squadron 6 (VT-6) from USS Enterprise (CV 6), and 13 Devastators of Torpedo Squadron 3 (VT 3) from USS Yorktown (CV 5) were the other two Torprons attacking. Around 0915, Torpedo 8 sighted the Japanese carriers and began its attack. Within the hour, Torpedo 6 and Torpedo 3 would also attack. None of the squadrons’ torpedoes scored hits, or if they did, none exploded, a serious problems with the U.S. Navy‘s torpedoes at the time. Only five of  Torpedo 6’s 14 Devastators returned to the Enterprise. Only two of VT-3’s 13 TBDs survived the attack. None of Torpedo 8’s 15 Devastators returned, and Gay was the sole survivor of all who took off that morning from Hornet. But  three squadrons of American SBD Dauntless dive-bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown – VB-6, VS-6 and VB-3 – arrived before the Japanese fleet could regain formation after evasive maneuvers, spot the decks of the carriers to launch more aircraft, or get its combat air patrol back up to altitude. In a matter of minutes, three of the four Japanese carriers were flaming wreckage. In this U.S. Navy oral history from the holdings of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command, Gay remembers the Battle of Midway and his squadron.

 

Lt. George Gay, USNR: Well, as you know Torpedo [Squadron] 8 was organized in Norfolk [Virginia] and I think you know the history of the [aircraft carrier USS] Hornet [CV 8] and where we went and what we did. I won’t go into that but I will say a little bit about Torpedo 8 and the things that they did before the Battle of Midway and before we lost the half of it that was in that battle, stationed aboard ship.

Well, Torpedo 8 had a difficult problem; we had old planes and we were new in the organization. We had a dual job of not only training a squadron of boot [inexperienced] ensigns, of which I was one of course, we also had to fight the war at the same time, and when we finally got up to the Battle of Midway it was the first time I had ever carried a torpedo on an aircraft and was the first time I had ever had taken a torpedo off of a ship, had never even seen it done. None of the other ensigns in the squadron had either.

One thing we’d like to clear up right to begin with, Lt. [Harold “Swede”] Larson and his half of Torpedo 8 stayed in Norfolk when we left there in order to get TBFs [single-engine “Avenger” torpedo bombers] and get the bugs out of them and get them fixed up for combat, and they were to bring them out and join us aboard ship. However, it happened that we were in the Battle of Midway, he came out on the [aircraft carrier USS] Saratoga [CV 3] and they requested six planes from him to go to the Island of Midway and they participated in the battle that day; however, the bulk of the TBFs attached to Torpedo 8 at that time were in Honolulu [Hawaii] and missed the Battle of Midway. They later went to Guadalcanal and I came home on sick leave.

I might just as well start down. Well, Torpedo 8 had a difficult problem; we had old planes and we were new in the organization. We had a dual job of not only training a squadron of boot [inexperienced] ensigns, of which I was one of course, we also had to fight the war at the same time, and when we finally got up to the Battle of Midway it was the first time I had ever carried a torpedo on an aircraft and was the first time I had ever had taken a torpedo off of a ship, had never even seen it done. None of the other ensigns in the squadron had either.

Quite a few of us were a little bit skeptical and leery but we’d seen [Lt. Col. James H.] Doolittle and his boys when they hadn’t even seen a carrier before and they took the B-25s off [of USS Hornet during the Tokyo Raid], we figured by golly if they could do it, well we could too. It turned out the TBD [Douglas “Devastator” torpedo bomber] could pick up the weight, so it was easy. We learned everything that we knew about Japanese tactics and our own tactics from [Lt.] Cmdr. [John C.] Waldron and Lt. [Raymond Austin] Moore and Lt. [James C.] Owens as they gave it to us on the blackboards and in talks and lectures. We had school everyday and although we didn’t like it at the time, it turned out that was the only way in the world we could learn the things we had to know, and we exercised on the flight deck, did all kinds of things that we’d have to do artificially because we couldn’t do our flying most of the time.

In the Coral Sea Battle we tried to get there and missed out on most of it but we were able along about that time to get in some bombing practice and to do some submarine patrol. However, the squadron didn’t get to fly near as much as we should have. In the actual battle – do you want me to say anything about the actual Battle at Midway and what we had there?

As I said, we had had no previous combat flying. We’d never been against the enemy, our only scrap with them had been in taking Doolittle to as close to Tokyo as we went and in trying to get into the Coral Sea Battle, but when we finally got into the air on the morning of June the 4th, we had our tactics down cold and we knew organization and what we should do. We could almost look at the back of Cmdr. Waldron’s head and know what he was thinking, because he had told us so many times over and over just what we should do under all conditions.

I didn’t get much sleep the night of June the 3^rd. The stories of the battle were coming in – midnight torpedo attack by the PBYs [twin-engine patrol bomber seaplane, known as the Catalina] and all kinds of things, and we were a little bit nervous, kind of, like before a football game. We knew that the Japs were trying to come in and take something away from us and we also knew that we were at a disadvantage because we had old aircraft and could not climb [to the same] altitude with the dive bombers or fighters and we expected to be on our own. We didn’t expect to run into the trouble that we found, of course, but we knew that if we had any trouble we’d probably have to fight our way out of it ourselves.

Before we left the ship, Lt. Cmdr. Waldron told us that he thought the Japanese Task Forces would swing together when they found out that our Navy was there and that they would either make a retirement in just far enough so that they could again retrieve their planes that went in on the attack and he did not think that they’d go on into the Island of Midway as most of the squadron commanders, and air group commanders, figured, and he told us when he left not to worry about our navigation but to follow him as he knew where he was going. And it turned out just exactly that way. He went just as straight to the Jap Fleet as if he’d had a string tied to them and we thought that morning, at least I did when I first saw the Japanese carriers, one of them that was afire and another ship that had a fire aboard and I thought that there was a battle in progress and we were late.

I was a little bit impatient that we didn’t get right on in there, then, and when it finally turned out that we got close enough in that we could make a contact report and describe what we could see the Zeros [Japanese fighter-bomber planes] jumped on us and it was too late. They turned out against us in full strength and I figured that there was about 35 of them. I understand, that is I found out later, that they operated fighter squadrons in numbers of about 32, and I guess it was one of those 32-plane squadrons that got us.

Its been a very general opinion that the anti-aircraft fire shot our boys down and that’s not true. I don’t think that any of our planes were damaged, even touched by anti-aircraft fire. The fighters, the Zeros, shot down every one of them, and by the time we got in to where the anti-aircraft fire began to get hot, the fighters all left us. I was the only one close enough to get any real hot anti-aircraft fire, and I don’t think it even touched me and I went right through it, right over the ship.

I think we made a couple of grave mistakes. In the first place, if we’d only had one fighter with us I think our troubles would have been very much less. We picked up on the way in a cruiser plane, a Japanese scout from one of their cruisers, and it fell in behind us and tracked us and I know gave away our position, and course and speed. We changed after he left but then I know that they knew we were coming. If we’d had one fighter to go back and knock that guy down, catch him before he could have gotten that report off, I believe the Japs might have been fooled some, quite some time longer on the fact that our fleet was there. I think that might have been one of their first contacts warning them that we had a fleet in the vicinity and that got us into trouble, I’m sure.

Also, we went into a scouting line out there when we were still trying to find them and didn’t, and the skipper [Waldron] put us in a long scouting line, which I thought was a mistake at the time. I didn’t ever question Cmdr. Waldron, of course, he had his reason for it and I know that he expected to find them, but he wanted to be sure that we did and that is the reason that we were well trained, and when he gave the join-up signal we joined up immediately. I was only afraid that in the scouting line in those old planes we would be caught by Zeros spread out and it would be much worse. As it turned out, it didn’t make a whole lot of difference anyway, but we joined up quickly and we got organized to make our attack, the Zeros got after us.

Personally, I was just lucky. I’ve never understood why I was the only one that came back, but it turned out that way, and I want to be sure that the men that didn’t come back get the credit for the work that they did. They followed Cmdr. Waldron without batting an eye and I don’t feel, like a lot of people have felt, that we made mistakes and that Cmdr. Waldron got us into trouble.

I remember the first one that came down got one of the airplanes that was over to the left. Cmdr. Waldron on his air phone asked [his gunner] Dobbs and came out over the air if that was a Zero or if it was one of our planes and I didn’t know whether Dobbs answered him or not, but I came out on the air and told him that it was a TBD. He also called [Hornet’s air group commander] “Stanhope [Ring] from Johnny One, answer” and we received no answer from the air groups. I don’t know whether they even heard us or not, but I’ve always had a feeling that they did hear us and that was one of the things that caused them to turn north as I think the squadron deserves quite a bit of credit for the work that they did.

Personally, I was just lucky. I’ve never understood why I was the only one that came back, but it turned out that way, and I want to be sure that the men that didn’t come back get the credit for the work that they did. They followed Cmdr. Waldron without batting an eye and I don’t feel, like a lot of people have felt, that we made mistakes and that Cmdr. Waldron got us into trouble. I don’t feel that way at all. I know that if I had it all to do over again, even knowing that the odds were going to be like they were, knowing him like I did know him, I’d follow him again through exactly the same thing because I trusted him very well. We did things that he wanted us to do not because he was our boss, but because we felt that if we did the things he wanted us to do then it was the right thing to do.

The Zeros that day just caught us off balance. We were at a disadvantage all the way around.

 

All right. Don’t you think those Zeros would have been up there even if they hadn’t run into that cruiser plane?

I do, yes, but in our particular case I think they would have been at that altitude after the dive bombers, which I think also was one thing Torpedo 8 and the other torpedo squadrons should be credited for, I mean given credit for doing. They sucked those fighters down so that when the dive bombers did get there, as I was in the water, I watched them and if they didn’t like to dive they were able to pull out and circle around a little bit and come on down later and if they felt like kind of individual bombing practice it was, it turned out to be beautiful bombing, because the fighters were not – I don’t say that there weren’t any fighters up there to get after them, there weren’t nearly as many as there would have been if they hadn’t come down to get us. So I think that is one thing that helped save the day as far as the battle was concerned. It was pretty rugged on the torpedo squadrons, there were two other ones out there that day, [Torpedo Squadron] 3 and 6, and they were shot up, one of them almost a bad as Torpedo 8, only they just didn’t get the publicity, but they do deserve the credit.

 

Yeah, well, it’s in the O.N.I. [Office of Naval Intelligence] report. Of course wasn’t one of the very bad breaks the fact that the dive bombers didn’t get there about the same time you did?

Well, yes, of course. If it could have been a coordinated attack the fact that the fighters wouldn’t have come down against us in strength, of course, there would have been just that many more airplanes around for them to take care of and they couldn’t have concentrated on us as well as they did. Naturally, a concentrated, I mean an organized raid, if we’d been able to all get there and coordinate the thing we’d have come out a whole lot better. Definitely that’s a fact that we, well, it’s just known that coordinated attacks, torpedo planes always come out better if you’ve got that much help. It’s the same way with anti-aircraft fire. The more planes you have to shoot at the better chance each one has.

 

Do you think that the attack would have been any more successful if the planes had been more or less spread out? Wasn’t Torpedo 8 rather close together as they went into the attack?

Well, that might be true had it been that we were being shot down by anti-aircraft fire, but being jumped, as we were, by a squadron of Zeros, our beliefs were, and I think they were very well founded, that our only protection would be to stick together and let each plane’s gun try and help the other plane.

I never have understood why it’s been the general opinion in designing torpedo planes that it is not an offensive weapon. They don’t seem to feel like they ought to put guns in it, and I disagree with that very thoroughly, and I can give my reasons for that.

In other words, in a TBD, with as few guns as they’ve got, the idea was to let, to stay together as a formation and fight them off as a pack rather than to try and spread out. We could have spread out all right, but they could have spread out too, and it would have been just that much worse on us.

I never have understood why it’s been the general opinion in designing torpedo planes that it is not an offensive weapon. They don’t seem to feel like they ought to put guns in it, and I disagree with that very thoroughly, and I can give my reasons for that.

When the Zeros attacked us that day, I was able, with my one fixed gun, to hit one; I know because I saw the tracers going into him. Of course, it couldn’t hurt him with one .30-caliber [machine gun], but in fighting us since in the TBFs, I’ve seen them get in front of me and I’ve wanted in the worst way to be able to have something to shoot at them with, and I had nothing to shoot at them with. In other words, we go out and get in trouble and we have to just hope that there’ll be fighters around to take care of us; whereas, if we had a way of fighting our way out, we not only would go out with a little more of an aggressive spirit, we’d get the job done a little better.

That day, I got a chance to shoot at other airplanes that just got in my way. It wouldn’t have been that I would go out of my way to try and act as a fighter plane, it was just that the targets were there and they will be there every time a torpedo plane makes an attack, those targets will get in his way and he ought to have something to shoot at them with.

I had to fly right over destroyers that were shooting at me. If I had machine guns forward and plenty of them, I’d have been able to give them a little trouble. Then as I got in close enough to drop my torpedo, I could see everything on the port side shooting at me. If I had had some machine guns to shoot back them, I might not have been able to silence those guns, but I could have made the gunners a little nervous. As it was, they were just sitting there shooting at me and I wasn’t shooting back at them. Then after I pulled up over the ship and did a flipper turn, I dove down right at the fantail of this big carrier where they were rearming and regassing the planes. Gas hoses were scattered all over the place out there, and I know they were full of gasoline. If I’d had forward guns, I could have set that ship afire right there myself.

I had no guns to shoot with except that one little pea shooter, the .30-caliber putt-putt, and by the time I got there it jammed, it either jammed or was shot up. Then after I went out, I flew over another destroyer and every time there was a target and every time I had no guns to work on it. They seem to feel that they don’t put the guns in the torpedo planes because we’ll go off and fool around and get ourselves in trouble. I don’t think they’ll have that trouble with the pilots because I do think that they should have firepower forward and also aft to take care of themselves so that when the targets get in the way you can at least have the self-satisfaction, if nothing else, of shooting at them. I really strongly recommend them forward. I find a lot of people who disagree with that, but that’s my personal opinion on it.

I found out a couple of things about the Battle of Midway in talking to a few people that were aboard the ship other than some of the pilots that I’ve known. Of course, I talked to the pilots that came into the hospital at Midway and I was very much worried and wondered why, when I was in the water there and there were so many ships around me that were dead in the water, either damaged or picking up personnel, I’ve wondered why they didn’t come in for a clean up. I mean our forces, why they didn’t – and I found out that unfortunate events had taken place.

The torpedo squadron hadn’t come back to the Hornet, of course, the fighter pilots were unfortunate and ran out of gas before they got back and I think most of them landed in the water, and the dive bombers went to the island of Midway to land, so the ship was back there with no aircraft whatever, except their combat [air] patrol of which there were just a few fighters, and they were worried sick and I know, I’ve talked to them about that afternoon, and I can imagine a ship sitting there with her air group gone and way overdue to return and nobody’s come back yet.

Well, I was very lucky. Of course, I said it was the first one I’d ever carried and naturally the first one I’ve ever dropped. I had learned from Cmdr. Waldron in his lectures that ships, especially large ships of that kind, when they commit themselves to a turn, full rudder or something, it’s quite some time – even if they apply full reverse rudder – it will be some time before they are able to straighten down, and usually he told us from reports and things the Japs would nearly always commit themselves when subject to torpedo attack, they will maneuver.

That’s one of the reasons why the Task Force was leery about coming on in to clean up, and I think the [aircraft carrier USS] Enterprise [CV 6] and the [aircraft carrier USS] Yorktown [CV 5] probably had the same trouble and that’s one way [reason] that the 60 ships that were there got away from us because we sure could have gotten some more of them. Any other questions?

 

What happened to your torpedo when you launched it?

Well, I was very lucky. Of course, I said it was the first one I’d ever carried and naturally the first one I’ve ever dropped. I had learned from Cmdr. Waldron in his lectures that ships, especially large ships of that kind, when they commit themselves to a turn, full rudder or something, it’s quite some time – even if they apply full reverse rudder – it will be some time before they are able to straighten down, and usually he told us from reports and things the Japs would nearly always commit themselves when subject to torpedo attack, they will maneuver.

So I came in with, of course, with the rest of the squadron … I keep saying “I”, I shouldn’t do it. We came in to make [an] attack on this ship, on her starboard side. When the squadron was finally wiped out and I got in close enough to the ack ack [anti-aircraft fire] to pick me up, she was in a hard turn to starboard, evidently going to circle, but at least took all my torpedoes if we’d have gotten in. Well, when I got in close enough to think about dropping a torpedo, I saw that she was in this hard turn and I pulled out to the right and swung back and gave her a lead and it was a perfect set up. I couldn’t have missed it if I’d wanted to because all I had to do was to give her about a ship’s length lead and then instead of the ship turning away from me, by the time the torpedo got to her she was broadside and when I shot at her she was coming to me and turning hard, so I just veered off to the left a bit and, I was to her port by this time see, and she was in the turn to starboard and I laid off left and she just turned right around into it. It was easy.

That right there, by the way, brings up a point that I’d like to mention – torpedo director. Somebody asked me if I had a torpedo director in the plane, and I did, but I was so gol darn busy I’d forgotten all about it and I never used it. I think they’re a very nice instrument and very handy for training, but I believe you’ll nearly always find, at least I always have, that when I got in close enough to think about dropping the torpedo, I was so doggone busy, and had been up to that time, I didn’t have time to fool with that thing. You’ll find that you make an attack, you use your evasive action that you’re so busy that you have to determine right out between 1,500 and 1,000 yards from the ship what you’re going to do and you can’t set up [the] torpedo director in that length of time. You have to fly in to your dropping point and it can’t be a set angle either. You’ve just got to fly up to the ship and then take whatever you get when you get there and make up your mind what you’re going to do about it in the split second and drop and then go on. Now that’s an attack against the large fleet that way, where you got anti-aircraft fire all around.

Of course, if you’ve got a transport or something that’s a sitting pigeon or something that you figure will go straight, you got time to use your director, that’s something else.

 

Right after that, as I understand it, you flew directly over the ship and circled about and finally was downed by a Zero. Do you want to go on from there please?

Well, yes, I dropped the torpedo and was fortunate enough to get away from the anti-aircraft fire, although everything was shooting at me. I flew right down the gun barrel of one of these big pom poms up forward. I think it must have been about 20 mm [anti-aircraft guns] stuff. I looked in the sights and tried to get a shot at that fellow but my gun was jammed by then and I figured the only way that I could evade all that anti-aircraft fire was not to throw my belly up in a turn away from the ship, but was just to go right straight to her and offer as small a target as I could. So I flew right down the gun barrels, pulled up on the port side, did a flipper turn right by the island, I could see the little Jap captain up there jumping up and down raising hell, and I thought about wishing that I had a .45 [M1911A1 pistol] so that I could take a pot shot at him. I couldn’t hit him, but, if nothing else, thrown the gun at him, just something, but I then dropped right back down on the deck and flew aft looking at these airplanes.

Before I got away from them though, the five Zeros dived right down on me in a line and about the second or third one shot my rudder control and ailerons out and I pancaked into the ocean. The hood slammed shut, I couldn’t keep the right wing up. It had hit the water first and snapped the plane in, and bent it all up and broke it up and the hood slammed shut and it was in the sprained fuselage. I couldn’t hardly get it open. That’s when I got scared. I was afraid I was going to drown in the plane.

By the way, I had a thought right in a split second there to crash into those planes. That I don’t feel is any suicidal instinct at all. I know that if I had been shot up to the extent where I felt that I’d only go over those planes and fall in the ocean on the other side, feeling that I was pretty near gone, just a matter of seconds, that I would have crashed right into those planes, because I could have started a beautiful fire and I figured that’s the way the Japs do it when they crash into a ship. It’s when a fellow is just gone and knows it, it is just crash into the ship or crash into the sea, and you have enough control to do a little bit more damage, why you crash into the ship.

I dropped down after going over these ships, I didn’t feel very badly, I had a left leg that was burned and a left arm that was gone, the plane was still flying and I felt pretty good and I didn’t see any sense in crashing into those planes. I though maybe I’d get a chance to go back and hit them again someday and as long as there’s life there’s hope, so I pulled up and went over them, dropped back down next to the water, just after I passed over the fantail and then I heard the torpedo go off. Just a little bit after that then anti-aircraft fire hadn’t picked up anymore, but the Zeros jumped on me and I was trying to get out of the fleet. Before I got away from them though, the five Zeros dived right down on me in a line and about the second or third one shot my rudder control and ailerons out and I pancaked into the ocean. The hood slammed shut, I couldn’t keep the right wing up. It had hit the water first and snapped the plane in, and bent it all up and broke it up and the hood slammed shut and it was in the sprained fuselage. I couldn’t hardly get it open. That’s when I got scared. I was afraid I was going to drown in the plane.

I got out of there and thought about my rear gunner, made a dive to try and pick him up, but I couldn’t get to him. The first thing I saw after I came to the surface was the other of those two large carriers headed right straight for me and she was landing planes.

By the way, that was an interesting operation. The Zeros were coming aboard and they’d circle way back behind the ship, have 1,500 or 1,000 feet altitude above her and coming straight in on their low gliding approach coming in straight and they weren’t landing planes nearly as fast as we do. It seemed to be a slow operation. I don’t know what kind of arresting gear they had aboard ships, it seemed to stop them pretty well as soon as they hit the deck, must have had a number of wires because when they landed in all kinds of different places it would stop right off, but I was a little bit interested in watching that, but I didn’t care to do it at such close hand. They went right by me about 500 yards to the west of me and the cruiser that was with her was only a thousand yards, screen and I presume, went by about 500 yards to the east of me headed north and they circled back.

After the [U.S. Navy SBD Dauntless] dive bombers came in and beat those carriers up and got them burning good and they lost control of them and they stopped pretty close to me, there was another [Japanese] cruiser that patrolled up and down on the north and south line that came by me first to the east, I guess about two miles away, and turned to me, and I thought they saw me and were coming over, but instead of that she just ran a 180 degree reversal and went back to the south. The next time she came up, she went by me much closer, but still to the east, went up and make her turn, and in her turn she got to the west of me and came back down by me on the other side. And then the third time that she came up, she came almost to me and made her 180 degree turn and went back, and on her way back that time, a patrol plane came by over to the west and she circled around the [Japanese aircraft carrier] Kaga to get on the other side and help throw up a screen against the patrol planes. They were trying to knock her down and she didn’t come back anymore.

Then during the afternoon, there was a [Japanese] destroyer came pretty close to running me down. It came closer to me than any other ship. If there had been anybody aboard that I knew I could have recognized them as they went by. Of course, I was hiding under this cushion and instead of having my head above and out of the water, I presented the side of this little black cushion to him and hoped that they’d figure out that I was a piece of the wreckage. Pretty fair estimate about that time anyway, so I managed to not to be picked up by them somehow.

Then during the afternoon, there was a [Japanese] destroyer came pretty close to running me down. It came closer to me than any other ship. If there had been anybody aboard that I knew I could have recognized them as they went by. Of course, I was hiding under this cushion and instead of having my head above and out of the water, I presented the side of this little black cushion to him and hoped that they’d figure out that I was a piece of the wreckage. Pretty fair estimate about that time anyway, so I managed to not to be picked up by them somehow.

My main troubles in the water, outside of my leg burning very badly in the salt water, I didn’t know exactly what was the matter with it until after I got into the hospital the next day. My hand was bleeding and I thought about sharks and then I remembered the concussions of the bombs and things and I knew that the sharks didn’t like those things and I figured that they would be run off and I think that this is the case, but I swallowed an awful lot of salt water, I lost an awful lot of weight and my main difficulty was keeping my eyes open. The salt water finally got in my eyes to such an extent that I could only with very great difficulty open my eyes and I would open them and scan the horizon 360 degrees and then shut them again and leave them that way unless I heard something or unless I figured it was maybe a ship might have gotten close since I looked the last time and I’d force them open and look again. I got better on that score, much better after I got out of the water and was able to kind of clean my eyes out and get the salt water out of them.

I had no provisions aboard in this lifeboat and I was very lucky in even having the boat because it had been in the plane fastened down with a safety belt and the only way in the world that I know of that it could have been gotten out of the plane was that one of the bullets had punctured the boat, knocked the safety catch on the belt loose and it floated out. Just a piece of my luck, that’s all and the emergency rations had a great big sack full of water and all kinds of things and it had SBC4 [Curtiss single-engine Navy scout bomber] tail wheel inner tubes in it and it was fixed to float. I know it would float. I had it sitting on top of the lifeboat so that it would float out or so that I could take it and throw it out in case I was able to work with the boat. I never did see it, I didn’t know whether it came out of the plane or not.

 

How about this cushion? Did you break that out or did that float out too?

No. The cushion just came floating out, and Cmdr. Waldron had always told us that he insisted that we have knives on our belts and everything else and he always told us that if we ever got in a spot like that never to throw anything away. I saw this cushion and at first I had no idea what I’d do with it but I figured I’d keep it. It turned out that it, I think, saved my life. I am very sorry that we didn’t have time when Pappy Cole came along in his P-boat [PBY Catalina] and picked me up, I would like to have, rather, gotten that life boat, the cushion and all that stuff brought back, but he asked me if I’d seen any planes that day and I told him I’d seen a couple of Jap cruiser planes, so he didn’t stay there very long. I was so tickled to be picked up along about that time that I wasn’t worried very much about souvenirs anyway.

Well, not too many at night. The carriers during the day resembled a very large oil field fire, if you’ve ever seen one. The fire coming out of the forward and aft end of the ship looked like a blow torch, just roaring white flame and the oil burning, the crude oil, boil up, I don’t know how high and just billowing big red flames belch out of this black smoke.

 

How about those heavy explosions you heard at night, didn’t you experience some heavy explosions?

Well, not too many at night. The carriers during the day resembled a very large oil field fire, if you’ve ever seen one. The fire coming out of the forward and aft end of the ship looked like a blow torch, just roaring white flame and the oil burning, the crude oil, boil up, I don’t know how high and just billowing big red flames belch out of this black smoke. The dive bombers told me they saw this smoke at 18,000 feet that day and really did make a nice fire and they’d burn for awhile and blow up for awhile and I was sitting in the water hollering “Hooray, Hooray.”

I was in a funny position to be cheering for the thing, but I was really tickled to see the dive bombers really pasting them even though they were in pretty bad shape. But during the afternoon after they pretty well burned themselves up, the larger one close to me there, the [Japanese aircraft carrier] Akagi, sank just after dark, the [Japanese] cruisers raked her with fire finished her off, and the other two, the [Japanese aircraft carriers] Kaga and the Soryu, burned all night, but they didn’t necessarily explode. As a matter of fact, the Japs were there trying to put the fires out. I could see them playing around searchlights, picking up people and trying, I think they were trying, to salvage these two ships; but the explosions that I heard the next morning turned out to be our submarines putting torpedoes into these things and they finished them off. That was early the next morning just as dawn was cracking.

I think the submarines, of course I know they knew they were there, and as soon as they could get a bead on them, why they let them have it and got out of the way again, cause they weren’t sure what was around. That’s where the explosions were.

 

Like they did to us a little bit later on the Yorktown. What time of morning was it that you got rescued Mr. Gay?

Well, [the] P-boat came along, he told me later, about 6:20 and circled me. I knew immediately when I saw it what it was, of course. I never had cared much for P-boats before; I was sure glad to see that one. Since then I always thought them a very beautiful airplane, and by the way, they do marvelous work. They picked up an awful lot of people there, but he came over and he circled. One of the kids in the rear blister waved his handkerchief at me and I knew that they had seen me. I didn’t expect them to stop, as a matter of fact I would have been surprised if they had, because I knew they had a job to do and I knew that they had just come out from Midway that morning fully loaded and on their mission to find the Japs, so he went off and was gone until in the afternoon, about 2:30, he came back and decided that I was too far out. They already had dispatched a PT boat to come out and pick me up from Pappy’s message he radioed back, but he said that he thought maybe they might not find me and I was too far away, so he landed in the open sea and made a beautiful landing, came in, headed right for me and before he even lost all of his speed in the landing, he came by me with the fuselage of the airplane almost on one side and wing float on the other, rocked me around, got me all wet again, but I was so tickled to see him that it didn’t make a bit of difference. He circled back and picked me up.

 

 This burn you talk about, was it a flash burn from anti-aircraft fire?

Well, [the] P-boat came along, he told me later, about 6:20 and circled me. I knew immediately when I saw it what it was, of course. I never had cared much for P-boats before; I was sure glad to see that one. Since then I always thought them a very beautiful airplane, and by the way, they do marvelous work. They picked up an awful lot of people there, but he came over and he circled. One of the kids in the rear blister waved his handkerchief at me and I knew that they had seen me.

Yes, a 20 mm exploded right by my left rudder pedal and the flash backed. I had wrapped my pants leg in my socks, which pilots do quite often, and I think they ought to always do it to protect against such things. My right leg, I don’t think would have received any of that anyway, but it evidently was still wrapped and my left, leg, the pants leg had come out of the sock and it was just the flash. I mean the flash burn will get you and you don’t need to think, just because you wrap your pants leg down and pull your sock up over it, that you’re not protecting yourself, because you are. A flash like that, even just a flare back in the plane, if it catches fire, you can’t ward off a continuous fire, of course, but you can get a nasty burn from flash that will be saved if you will only have just some light piece of material between you, you know, just to protect your flesh, skin.

 

These two injuries you have from anti-aircraft, from plane fire, or anti-aircraft fire.

Well, as I said before, the anti-aircraft fire didn’t come anywheres close to me, at least I don’t think it even hit the plane. The slug that I had in my hand and the one that had been in my arm, were both machine gun bullets from Zeros. I think both of those pieces had been ripping through the plane and were very well spent by the time they hit me, cause they just went under the skin and stopped. A machine gun bullet, if it had caught me with any force, it would have gone right on by, but both of those things were pretty well spent, when they got me and knocked me around a little bit, I felt it when they hit, of course, but they were able to take them out and no injuries, only scars, show for it. They didn’t hurt my hand at all.

 

One thing more before we leave Midway. How did Cmdr. Waldron know exactly where to fly? From previous contact reports that had come in?

Well, yes, that and his old foxy brain. He was a tactician from way back. He studied those kinds of things. He thought about them all the time. We’d be sitting in the ready room and it’d be just a general bull session going on, everybody would be laughing and talking, and he’d be sitting there looking up in the ceiling thinking about tactics and the Japanese, what they might do on certain occasions and things, and he’d stand up and call the place to attention and go into an hour and a half or so lecture. I don’t mean to say that he wasn’t a good sport, because when it came to throwing a party or having a good time on the beach, why we had a devil of a time keeping up with him. Boy, he was a party man. But he had his parties when he had his parties, and when he got aboard ship it was business. And I think that he just figured that thing out himself. Of course, he had all the contact reports at his disposal, and from that he just figured his strategy and when he took off to go, he told us where he thought they’d be. By golly, that’s where they were.