Recollections of Lieutenant George Gay, USNR -- sole
survivor of Torpedo Squadron Eight (VT-8) -- describing his
experiences during the Battle of Midway. He was subsequently
awarded the Navy Cross and the Presidential Unit Citation for
his actions in the battle.
Adapted from Ensign George Gay, USNR, interview in box 11
of World War II Interviews, Operational Archives Branch, Naval
Historical Center.
Related Resource: Photographs of Lieutenant George Gay,
USNR
Lt.
Gay:
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.
One thing we'd like to clear up right to begin with, Lt.
Larson and his half of Torpedo 8 stayed in Norfolk when we left
there in order to get TBF's [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 TBF's 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 [Lieutenant Colonel James H.] Doolittle [USA] and his
boys when they hadn't even seen a carrier before and they took
the B-25s [twin-engine 'Mitchell' bombers] off, 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 Commander Waldron and
Lt. Moore and Lieutenant 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 Comdr. [Commander] 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.
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I didn't get much sleep the night of June the 3rd, the
stories of the battle were coming in, midnight torpedo attack by
the PBY's [twin-engine patrol bomber seaplane, known as
'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 the 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. Comdr. 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 though 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 everyone of them, and by the time we got in to where the
anti-aircraft fire began to get hot, the fighters all left us
and 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 sometime 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 in to a scouting line out there when we were
still trying to find them and didn't and the skipper [commanding
officer] put us in a long scouting line which I thought was a
mistake at the time. I didn't ever question Comdr. 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.
I remember the first one that came down got one of the
airplanes that was over to the left. Comdr. Waldron on his air
phone asked 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 Stanholpe Ring from 'John E. 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 Comdr. Waldron
without batting an eye and I don't feel like a lot of people
have felt that we made mistakes and that Comdr. 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.
Interviewer:
All right. Don't you think those Zeros would have been up there
even if they hadn't run into that cruiser plane?
Lt. Gay:
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, Three
and Six, 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.
Interviewer:
Year, 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?
Lt. Gay:
Well, yes, of course. If it could have been a co-ordinated
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 co-ordinate the thing we'd have
come out a whole lot better. Definitely that's a fact that we,
well, it's just known that co-ordinated 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.
Interviewer:
Do you think that the attack would have been any more successful
if they planes had been more or less spread out. Wasn't Torpedo
8 rather close together as they went into the attack?
Lt. Gay:
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.
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 TBF's, 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
carriers 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 fire power 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 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. That's one of the reasons why the Task
Force was leery about coming on into 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?
Interviewer:
What happened to your torpedo when you launched it?
Lt. Gay:
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 Commander 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 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, buy 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 1500
and 1000 yards from the ship what you're going to do and you
can't set up torpedo director in that length of time. you have
to fly into 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 seconds 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
sitting pigeon or something that you figure will go straight,
you got time to use your director, that's something else.
Interviewer:
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?
Lt. Gay:
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 on 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 say 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 heel, and I thought about wishing that I had a .45 [US
Pistol, caliber .45, M-1911A1] 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.
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
1500 or 1000 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 [US Navy] 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.
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
[Curtis 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.
Interviewer:
How about this cushion? Did you break that out or did that float
out too?
Lt. Gay:
No. The cushion just came floating out and Comdr. 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 seaplane?] 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.
Interviewer:
How about those heavy explosions you heard at night, didn't you
experience some heavy explosions?
Lt. Gay:
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 seem
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.
Interviewer:
Like they did to us a little bit later on the Yorktown.
What time of morning was it that you got rescued Mr. Gay?
Lt. Gay:
Well, 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
[high-speed wooden motor torpedo] 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.
Caption: A log book from the Navy seaplane
that rescued Ensign George Gay, the sole survivor among 30
pilots and gunners from Torpedo Squadron 8 at the Battle of
Midway 60 years ago, rests in the hands of Hill Goodspeed,
historian of the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola,
Fla., Friday, May 31, 2002. The log book was donated by Jack
Bohner, who had been a radio operator aboard the aircraft. Gay
later autographed the entry describing his rescue.
Interviewer:
This burn you talk about, was it a flash burn from anti-aircraft
fire?
Lt. Gay:
Yes, a 20 mm. [anti-aircraft shell] exploded right by my left
rudder pedal and the flash backed. I had wrapped my pants' leg
in my sox, 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.
Interviewer:
These two injuries you have from anti-aircraft, from plane fire,
or anti-aircraft fire.
Lt. Gay:
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.
Interviewer:
Did you have a shoulder holster when you were in the water?
Lt. Gay:
I did, yes. I had my .45 in the shoulder holster and I took it
out, it lasted pretty well. I expected to be able to get some
material out of the emergency rations, to take care of a thing
like that, I didn't have anything to keep it from getting rusty.
The next day when they picked me up, one of the Ordnance boys
aboard the plane told me that he'd fix my .45 up for me and
bring it to me the next morning early, but the Doctors, of
course, the hospital at Midway was blown up and with my hand in
the condition it was in they decided to fly me to Pearl Harbor
as soon as possible, so the next morning before daylight why
they put me aboard a PB2Y [four-engine 'Coronado' seaplane
patrol bomber] and I was flown back, so I didn't get my .45.
I don't know what the kid did with it, but I do know that
coming in that day after they picked me up there were a couple
of our fighters saw us and came over to investigate and, of
course, the crew aboard ship weren't sure what they were right
at first and they began to limber up their guns and get ready to
repel Jap fighters and I know that everybody in the crew pulled
out all kinds of guns from everywhere. They pulled out rifles,
army rifles, and one kid had an old western .45 with big old
cock back hammer and so I figured that if my .45 would be put to
such use as that, I could do without it.
Interviewer:
Well, getting back to this holster. Were you the first man of
Torpedo 8 to have a shoulder holster?
Lt. Gay:
Well, I kind of think that I am. I feel that I was the person
that started the shoulder holster business. I came into the
Ready Room one day, I'd been worrying about carrying my gun. I
always wanted to have it with me in the air, and in the old
armor plate bucket seat in the TBD it was very uncomfortable to
carry side arms in a holster. So I went into the parachute loft
and had the boy make me a shoulder holster, and I came into the
ready room wearing that thing and everybody in Torpedo 8
immediately took a liking to it, and we got some leather out of
the store room and began making leather shoulder holsters for
everybody. So the whole squadron had them, everybody else on the
ship called us, 'Circus' and a bunch of 'Mexican Panchos'
running around with knives and shoulder holsters and everything
else, and them when we finally got down into the Coral Sea and
began losing pilots and the boys were going into the Islands
without their knives and things, they came around to ask us if
we didn't have some spare equipment, but we had, thanks to
Commander Waldron, we'd gotten all that stuff way back in San
Diego when it could be had.
But I think since then, as a matter of fact I know that
nearly all the boys that fly planes that will offer difficulty
in carrying a pistol as a side arm, use shoulder holsters and
there's quite a few of them in the Southwest Pacific now, and
nearly every time I see one, I kind of feel like personally I
started that. I don't know whether its true or not.
Interviewer:
Another thing in which Torpedo 8 more or less pioneered was this
business of exercising?
Lt. Gay:
Well, yes. Commander Waldron had us out on the flight deck every
morning taking our exercise. He figured that we needed it and we
didn't get to fly much and we'd go up on the flight deck and run
around the deck and also do regular physical drill. It didn't
hurt us at all. As a matter of fact, it did us a lot of good;
but the rest of the squadrons on the ship would stand around and
'haw'' at us and laugh about it; but I found out later though
that after Torpedo 8 was gone, that the whole ship was doing it
and it's a good idea.
Interviewer:
One thing more before we leave Midway. How did Commander Waldron
know exactly where to fly? From previous contact reports that
had come in?
Lt. Gay:
Well, yes, that and his old foxy brain. He was a tactician from
way back. He studied those kind 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 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.
Interviewer:
He figured it out perfectly.
Lt. Gay:
Um hum.
Interviewer:
Allright. Do you want to tell us something about your further
combat experiences?
Lt. Gay:
Well, after Midway, I came back to the States for a period of 30
days' leave, and I began my combat experience with the United
States Public Relations and Incentives Division in going around
talking to all of those war industries and what not, and I was
in the [United] States for a little over three months, of last
year; then I joined Torpedo Squadron 11. The Air Group Commander
at that time was Commander Ramsey, my squadron Commander was Lt.
Comdr. F.L. Ainsworth, and he came to the Squadron from the
Bureau and previous to that time, he'd been a patrol plane
pilot. he had a very difficult job of learning torpedo tactics
and torpedo work, and he did a very marvelous job. He was a
great skipper, and I've admired him as a friend and also as a
squadron Commander. A great man.
We were supposed to go back aboard the Hornet. I had
asked Admiral Nimitz and later Admiral Mason if it would be
arranged so that I could come back and go aboard the Hornet
and Air Group 11 was supposed to go to the Hornet, but
before we could get back out there, she was sunk and we stayed
in Pearl Harbor for some time training. Went from there to the
Fiji's [large island group in Polynesia] and trained a little
while there and then went on up to Guadalcanal where we did
quite a bit of might work on what we call prowl hops. Strike
Command would send us up 300 miles from Henderson Field into the
Bougainville-Kahili [Solomon Islands] area looking for shipping
at night. We would drop flares and skip bomb them and were
fairly fortunate in quite a few ships. The squadron was told
before we left down there, that we had been able to wreak more
havoc on the enemy with less casualties to ourselves than any
other unit that had been at Guadalcanal, which I thought was a
pretty good record.
We had one thing that happened that was a distinct blow to
the whole squadron. After having worked there for a period of
about, well, it was nearly three months, they told us we could
have a blow and go to Sidney, Australia. We were given four SCAT
[Service Command Air Transportation] planes, one to leave each
day with our pilots and our crews. One of those planes crashed
in Tontouta, killing our then Air Group Commander, Lt. Commander
Hamilton, and his crew. He was a TBF flier, of course, and also
killed other pilots, Lieutenant Lindsey, and an NAP {Naval
Aviation Pilot] by the name of Quick, Ensign Paul Bable, and
Ensign Weise and Ensign Burke, and their ground crews and
another very marvelous man, by the name of Mike Flynn,
Lieutenant, A-V(S) [US Naval Reserve aviation officer qualified
for specialist duties] officer.
He was our Operations Officer and left a job that we later
found out we couldn't get three men to fill. He really was a
good man and he didn't know about the Navy when he got into it,
and didn't know much about airplanes and flying them, but he
really took over his job out there and really went to town. He
did a beautiful job and I like Mike very much. He had a habit in
his civilian life of being able to make money without any
trouble and he was a good poker player, and he came out pretty
well on his poker winnings, and he also had a lot of money. He
bought a $100 bond for everybody in the squadron. He put it up
in his will, and I'll probably see it some day. I never did
think Mike would get it. He just made up his mind that he wanted
to go with us when we went to Australia, and he got on this
transport and got killed. I think that was about the second or
third hop he'd taken since he'd been with the squadron.
But to the enemy we didn't lose very many people. One radio
man was killed in the plane with Ensign Weise on a daylight raid
to Bougainville and, of course, the next day Weise was killed in
this Tontouta crash in a DC-3 [twin-engine Douglas 'Dakota'
transport], but we lost on a night mine laying hop an Ensign who
had joined the squadron in the Fiji Islands by the name of
Sweitzer, and on a daylight raid we lost an Ensign by the name
of Snell. Of course, we lose their crews with each of the
pilots. Unfortunately, I don't get to know the crews very well.
On this publicity business, it's unfortunate to me that I
can't tell their story and give them the credit that they
deserve. They never get the credit that they really have coming
to them. That's another story. That's all we had lost to the
Japs. We had another kid lost in the fog one night, by the name
of Harry Brown. He and his crew. We were very lucky and had a
wonderful squadron. We were in on the initial softening up
[pre-invasion bombardment] of Munda [peninsula on the island of
New Georgia, Solomon Islands] and then came back to the States.
I've been back here about weeks.
Interviewer:
Can you tell us anything more about that initial softening up of
Munda?
Lt. Gay:
Well, yes. Munda had been pounded long before we ever got to
Guadalcanal [easternmost large island in the Solomons]. As a
matter of fact, the palm trees and everything up there were
pretty well beat up and we'd go up on an average of about twice
a day with some 48 TBFs, loaded with either four 500-pound
bombs, demolitions or 2,000-pound instantaneous or daisy
cutters, and we'd have some 40 or 50 SBDs [Douglas 'Dauntless'
dive-bombers] with thousand pound bombs, and a number of
fighters, and we'd go up there and just move the dirty over a
couple of hundred yards, and then the next afternoon we'd come
back again; and we did that nearly every day. Just kept right on
pounding them, but it happened that although we thought that it
would be easy for the ground forces to walk in there and take
the place, the first thing they started crying for when they got
there was more air support. The Japs were dug in, they were all
underground, and I think that although you beat on them from the
air like the devil, they are going to be hard to take whenever
you hit them on the ground. Of course, I am not much of a ground
tactician, I don't know much about the ground fighting out
there, except that we all though thought Munda was beat down to
such a state that it would be easy. It turned out that it
wasn't. It took them longer than we thought it would. We had to
go back up and do it some more.
The question's been asked if I saw any of our rear gunners in
the TBDs shoot down any of the Zeros in the action at Midway. My
answer to that is 'Yes.' I saw five Zeros shot down. Of course,
now that has been my answer to that question has been
interpreted that my rear gunner shot down five planes. That's
not true. That was the combined action of the squadron, the boys
were working on them with everything they had, trying to keep
them off us and we may have gotten more than that. As a matter
of fact, I would be inclined to think that we did, but I know
positively that we got five. Because I saw them hit the water.
Interviewer:
Another question. Going back to your rescue at Midway, how did
you identify yourself to your rescuing planes?
Lt.
Gay:
Well, I was sitting up in the middle of this battle area and
there was all kinds of things around, oil slick and barrels and
lumber and the Japanese life rafts were black. I was in a big
four man yellow rubber life raft and I am sure he knew, as soon
as he saw that yellow boat, that I was an American. Of course, I
waved to him and had my regular Navy T-shirt, took my khaki
shirt off and just figured if he saw that Navy T-shirt, me in
that yellow boat, that he'd know it was one of his buddies.
Interviewer:
You said you did some mine laying. Where did you do that and
what type of work is that?
Lt. Gay:
Well we did that up in the Kahili area up around Bougainville
[largest of the Solomon Islands] in Shortland Harbor. To me,
outside of daylight skip bombing in TBFs, that's about as rugged
a thing a flight command can dream up. It's aerial mines.
They've got to be dropped from about 800 feet altitude. You've
got to go into the harbor, pick out a landmark and fly on a
steady compass course for a period of seconds, depending upon
where your mine belongs in the field. You come in, pick up your
point, and fly right straight along, and if the Japs happen to
see you out there, they kind of make it hot for you. They can
pretty well figure out what you are doing right off the bat. It
calls for some tricky flying, 'cause you've got, in our
particular places, we had some 50 TBFs that had to get into the
harbor and get out in some 15-20 minutes. We had the Army
supporting us in bombing these ground installations along the
beach, trying to keep their searchlights out and the
anti-aircraft fire from eating us up, and they did beautiful
work. The lights would come on and they' put them out.
Of course, in that night work also, no one has any lights on
and you lean your mixture back to where the plane's just gasping
for gasoline and that dampens down the exhaust. I never have
seen the difficulty in getting out an exhaust dampener. I would
think if you'd stick a plate over it somewhere where it don't
show, that's all you need; but that work is tricky and it's got
to be planned and well executed.
It seems to me, in speaking of night flying, especially in a
harbor that way, the general tendency of nearly all pilots when
they get under that kind of fire, is to get down next to the
water, which is a good idea; but at night, anytime, flying over
the water, you can't judge your distance, and my tendency, my
feeling was always to pull back on the stick rather than go
down, because I'm sure that some of the boys that we lost up
there in that stuff just flew into the water. That's all there
was to it. And so, I think that it should be borne in mind that
radar altimeters should always be used in planes doing that
work, because, when that red light flashes on, you are getting
too close. I think it should be remembered in all cases that
that equipment be required for such work.
Interviewer:
What types of mines were you laying there, and how heavy were
they, and how many could you carry with your plane?
Lt. Gay:
In the TBF we were able to carry one. It was a big 1000 pound
Mark 2. We had some Mark 2's and Mark 3's, aerial mines. They
had parachute attachments and we could drop them as high as
eleven, twelve hundred feet. They'd parachute down and they were
magnetic mines. They had devices in the exploder mechanism fixed
so that they would, if a minesweeper or a ship would pass over
them, they would click. In other words, click, off a section;
and they could be set for any number of notches that you wanted
to put on them, I think up to 12. And we managed to harass them
a bit as we set all of them at different intervals, and we know
that they were sweeping the place all the time, and they'd sweep
over one of those things three or four times and they'd think
the place was clear and maybe on the fifth click she'd go off.
You understand those things. I didn't know much about mines.
Haven't done a whole lot of that kind of work, but it was
interesting, and it was tricky and I was very glad to have that
experience.
Picture: George Gay given the Navy Cross.
Photo courtesy of
Nancy Reeves Casey*
Interviewer:
How successful was it?
Lt. Gay:
Well, we were told that it was fairly successful. It's hard to
determine how many ships you sink in a case like that, because
you can't be on the spot when the ship's sunk. They sneak in on
you there at night and it's liable to be sunk and you'd never
know about it. We were given credit for a number of ships being
sunk, two or three, I am sure, but the main thing that a field
like that will do will be to make them mine-conscious, keep them
constantly working on sweeping the fields and make them bring
their ships into their harbors by a definite route each time,
which helps us when we want to go in and make a raid you see. We
know where the ships ought to go, what lanes they'll use.
They'll make a definite effort to sweep one place, make an
entrance, so that they can get in. Well, we can find out where
that is and when we go up there hunting ships, we know what
lanes they should be in. It makes them worry a lot and although
we were kind of leery about it, at the time, we felt that we
were doing a job that wasn't of much importance. Since then, I
found out that it was, and did a good deal of damage and
accomplished its purpose very well.
*
"LT A-V(N) Thomas A Reeves is standing on the left. He was
assigned to CASU-5 as Executive Officer (6), whatever that
means, and Officer in Charge of Detachment "B" (3).
Gay received his medal in the fall of '42 and my dad was in
attendance for the ceremony.
He originally flew the Curtiss bi-planes and then the SBD'3 in
squadron VS-5 on the Yorktown CV-5. He went on the
Marshall-Gilbert raids of 1 FEB 42, flew behind Burch (to Makin)
with photographer Pflaum on board. After he got back to the
Yorktown and refueled, he was sent back up with the others on
anti-torpedo patrol around the ship. His engine quit in the
storm and he crashed into the water behind the ships. He was
rescued but had a bad head injury and was taken to Tripler Hosp
in Hawaii when the convoy got back to Pearl. He was then
assigned land duty, setting up various CASU's in the Pacific, in
addition to retaining his status as pilot. My dad was assigned
to CASU-5 in San Diego when Gay rec'd his medal."
Nancy Reeves Casey
