HISTORY

Douglas TBD-1 Debastators of Torpedo Eight aboard Hornet preparing to take off to strike the Japanese fleet.

All 18 bombers would be lost in the attack, with only one surviving pilot, ENS George Gay. (USN)

required more than an hour to launch 117.

The Enterprise Dauntlesses were airborne

by 0725 hours forming up and climbing in

circles above the carrier. Twenty minutes

after the dive bombers launched, the first

VF-6 Wildcat escort was launched, followed by VT-6's 18 slow TBDs. By the time

the TBDs were airborne and assembled

under the leadership of Lt Cdr Gene Lindsey, the SBDs were distant on the horizon.

At this point, the VF-6 Wildcats mistakenly took up position over Hornet’s Torpedo

Eight, Leaving Torpedo Six without fighter

escort.

Hornet’s air group also broke up shortly

after CAG Cdr Stanhope Ring took up his

westerly heading of 265 degrees at the

head of the dive bombers. Torpedo Eight’s

Lt Cdr John Waldron, who still believed his

course information was correct, signaled

his pilots to follow him and took up what

he had determined was the most direct

course to the enemy, taking a heading

of 240 degrees. The VF-6 F4F-4s followed.

Fortunately, Admiral Fletcher decided

to commit Yorktown’s air group to launch

at 0838 hours. The combat-experienced

Air Department ordered the squadrons

to execute a "running rendezvous". Lt Cdr

Lance Massey’s slow Torpedo Three TBDs

were launched first and headed off at low

altitude. Bombing Three and Scouting Five,

led by VB-3's LCDR Max Leslie, launched next, while John Thach’s eight F4F-4

Wildcats launched last.

Having taken the most direct course to the

enemy, Waldron spotted Kidō Butai shortly

after he spotted smoke on the horizon at

0925 hours. His guess the enemy would

make a turn to the north had been right.

Unfortunately, his call to Stanhope Ring

that he had found the fleet came too late.

The Hornet CAG took the SBDs and their

escorting F4F-4s to maximum range and

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missed the Japanese entirely. Prewar carrier doctrine called for a strike force in

this position to return to the nearest friendly land base. In this case, that meant

Midway, which was in no condition to receive the strike force. Ring had required

a “parade ground” formation, which meant

increased gas usage; it was now questionable the formation had the fuel to get to

Midway. Some SBDs and F4Fs tried to return to Hornet, while the others headed toward Midway. While most of the dive bombers made it; only two of the 10 Wildcats

returned. Ring’s decision removed Hornet

from the battle and nearly cost Marc Mitscher his career, had he not already received notice of promotion to Rear Admiral.

Torpedo Eight had been spotted by the Japanese scout that had spotted the American carriers; the enemy was waiting for

them when they got to the fleet. The Zero

CAP fell on the TBDs. Waldron was one of

the first shot down. In the next five minutes, all but one crashed into the sea with

no survivors. Ensign George Gay dropped

his torpedo; as his plane struck the water,

the hood slammed shut. The TBD tipped

for its final dive as Gay struggled to open

the canopy. “I couldn’t hardly get it open.

That’s when I got scared.” Finally, the hood

slid back, and he scrambled out. He was

left bobbing in the sea; a moment later, his

seat cushion popped to the surface.

VF-6 commander Lieutenant John Gray

had become separated from both his

VT-6 and VT-8. The Wildcats arrived on

the far side of the enemy fleet and waited

for the call for assistance from Torpedo

Six’s Gene Lindsey as they orbited 15 miles

on the opposite side of the fleet from the

torpedo bombers they were charged with

protecting. The VT-6 bombers arrived on

the wrong side of the formation; Lindseys

division was spared the attention of the

CAP as they flew around the enemy formation, but were finally caught by the Zeros

as they began their run in. He and three

others were shot down, while the other

three managed to drop their torpedoes and

escape to return to Enterprise. The second

division chased Kaga as the CAP slashed

at them, taking them down one-by-one.

Finally, only the TBDs flown by Aviation

Machinist’s Mate 1/c A. Walter Winchell and

Chief Aviation Machinist Stephen B. Smith

were still flying, both damaged. They both

dropped their torpedoes and managed

to escape the fire. Smith made it back to

Enterprise, while Winchell and gunner

Aviation Radioman 3/c Douglas M. Cossit

were forced to ditch, surviving 17 days in

their raft until they were rescued by a PBY

on June 21.

The 12 TBDs of Yorktown’s VT-3, led

by Lt Cdr Lance “Lem” Massey, escorted by

six F4F-4 Wildcats led by John S. Thach,

found the enemy a matter of minutes after the Enterprise SBDs made their devastating attack on Kaga and Akagi, just

as Lt Cdr Max Leslie led 36 dive bombers

nosed over to attack Sōryū. Yorktown’s

strike was the only air group to make

a coordinated attack.

Thach recalled they had only a few hops

to get used to the new F4F-4. VF-42's Jim

Adams recalled, “We went from bad to

worse when we picked up the F4F-4 for

Midway. We had all kinds of extra weight

and a real sluggish aircraft; six guns and

less firing time. The reduction in rounds

per gun with the increase from four to six

guns cut the firing time by six seconds.

That doesn’t sound like much, but it can be

a lifetime in combat.”

Thach’s formation included his wingman,

Ensign Robert A. M. "Ram" Dibb, with

VF-42's Lt (jg) Brainard Macomber and

wingman Ensign Edgar Bassett. Aviation Machinist Mate 1/c Tom Cheek and his

wingman, Ensign Daniel Sheedy, were

just astern of the TBDs, all about 1,000

feet above the bombers, flying at 750 feet.

Thach later remembered, “We had to do

S turns, so we wouldn't run away from

the TBDs and we didn't want to be stalling

along with no ability to maneuver in case

something hit us before we anticipated it.

We were flying our standard combat formation and were weaving.”

“Looking ahead, I could see ships through the breaks in the clouds, and I figured

that was it. We had just begun to approach

about ten miles from the outer screen of

this large force, it looked like it was spread

over the ocean, and several colored antiaircraft bursts appeared in our direction,

one red and another orange, and then no

more. I wondered why they'd be shooting

at us because we weren't even nearly in

range. We'd been sighted by the surface

screen, and they were alerting the combat

air patrol. A very short time after, before

October 2022