Ens george gay

Ensign George H. Gay Jr. (right), sole survivor of VT-8's TBD Devastator group, in front of his aircraft with his rear gunner, ARM3c George Arthur Field, while Hornet was in the Coral Sea, c. None of the other ensigns in the squadron had either.

George Gay Hall of : S

Often mistakenly referred to as Torpedo Squadron Eight’s lone Midway survivor, George Gay nevertheless plays a huge role in the battle’s enduring mystique. Ennobled on the cover of Life magazine in Augusthe received the Navy Cross and became iconic as the “sole.

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. 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.

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.

James H. We learned everything that we knew about Japanese tactics and our own tactics from [Lt. With knowledge of a large Japanese invasion fleet moving towards Midway Island outnumbering the. In a matter of minutes, three of the four Japanese carriers were flaming wreckage.

In the 75 years since the Battle of Midway, Ensign George “Tex” Gay Jr. has evolved into an almost mythical figure. 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.

They later went to Guadalcanal and I came home on sick leave. 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 en george gay [to the same] altitude with the dive bombers or fighters and we expected to be on our own.

In the actual battle — do you want me to say anything about the actual Battle at Midway and what we had there? I might just as well start down. 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.

By Chuck Oldham Editor - June 4, Navy photo courtesy of Mark Horan. National Archives photo. As I said, we had had no previous combat flying. 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.

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.

AroundTorpedo 8 sighted the Japanese carriers and began its attack. We could almost look at the back of Cmdr. 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.

Within the hour, Torpedo 6 and Torpedo 3 would also attack. May During the Battle of Midway, Gay was the first of his squadron to take off from Hornet on June 4, For Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. of Waco, Texas, the morning of June 4, began with groggy trepidation.