Battle of midway ensign gay oral history ibiblio

Before we left the ship, Lt. We are about to obtain a narrative from Lieutenant George Gay, who, as Ensign Gay, was the sole survivor of Torpedo 8 at the Battle of Midway. By Chuck Oldham Editor - June 4, Navy photo courtesy of Mark Horan. Within the hour, Torpedo 6 and Torpedo 3 would also attack.

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.

They later went to Guadalcanal and I came home on sick leave. As I said, we had had no previous combat flying. For Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. of Waco, Texas, the morning of June 4, began with groggy trepidation. An oral history from Lt. George Gay, the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8 during the Battle of Midway.

National Archives photo. Then-Ensign George Gay, U. Another detachment of Torpedo 8, comprised of a few of the new TBF Avenger torpedo-bombers, was flying that day from Midway island itself. 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.

Ensign George H Gay

In this U. Navy oral history from the holdings of the U. Well, Torpedo 8 had a difficult problem; we had old planes and we were new in the organization. James H. We learned everything that we knew about Japanese tactics and our own tactics from [Lt.

In the actual battle — do you want me to say anything about the actual Battle at Midway and what we had there? 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.

In a matter of minutes, three of the four Japanese carriers were flaming wreckage. 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.

US People Gay George

During the Battle of Midway, Gay was the first of his squadron to take off from Hornet on June 4, Gay's squadron found the Japanese fleet and launched an attack without any fighter plane support. 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 could almost look at the back of Cmdr. 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.

We are in Room Main Navy Building, October 12, 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. A great step forward when it first appeared, the Devastator was obsolete by the time of the Battle of Midway, and the aircraft flew with only two crew members during the battle.

None of the other ensigns in the squadron had either. With knowledge of a large Japanese invasion fleet moving towards Midway Island outnumbering the assembled American naval force, Gay did not sleep well. AroundTorpedo 8 sighted the Japanese carriers and began its attack.

I might just as well start down.