“As the Zeroes swirled madly around the Devastators, it seemed to Tex Gay that he was flying in slow motion. The enemy fighters appeared to have three times his speed, and were darting in and out of their tight formation like backcountry prairie falcons. Up ahead to the right, he saw one of the Devastators drop like a hurtling stone into the sea, its two-man crew gone in almost an instant. It happened so fast that Tex had no idea whose plane it was. A few seconds later, another Devastator went down on his left. “Is that a Zero or one of our planes?” came Waldron’s voice over the radio. Tex radioed back that it was a Devastator. The Zeroes were concentrating on the lead planes in the formation as Torpedo Eight continued boring in toward the nearest Japanese carriers. Tex tried to keep his Devastator steady and straight so that his crewman, Bob Huntington, had a clear and stable field of fire. That also made them easier prey. He watched as another one of the Devastators blew up in a shower of flame and debris. They were past the airborne wreckage of men and plane a moment later. The dwindling formation was still mies from the carriers when yet another Devastator did a slow half roll and crashed into the sea on its back, disintegrating when it hit the water. Bob Huntington came on the intercom. “Let’s go back and help, sir,” he said. There was nothing they could do to help. Tex could only press on with the attack, even if they were the last ones left. Those were the Skipper’s orders. There would be time for mourning their losses later. Two Zeroes moved in to attack him, one from behind and the other from the port side. He could feel machine gun bullets thudding into the armor plate behind his bucket seat. A second pattern raked his instrument panel and blasted several holes in the windshield. He heard Bob Huntington cry out on the intercom. Turning his head for a quick look, he saw him slumped down in his seat, motionless. When he turned forward again, the Devastator that had been flying alongside him had disappeared. In the distance Tex saw that the carriers had all swung to the west, heading away from them to reduce their target profile. Shoving the throttle forward, he watched the air speed indicator slowly begin to climb. Waldron’s voice was still coming through his earphones, fast and furious. “There’s two fighters in the water,” the Skipper had radioed at one point. “See that splash … I’d give a million to know who done that.” In the tail compartment of his Dauntless dive-bomber far to the north, Leroy Quillen was listening to Waldron’s excited words as they came through the radio. He wondered why no one in the group was responding to Waldron’s calls. “My two wingmen are going in,” came Waldron’s voice for the last time. Then it was his turn. The Skipper’s plane was out in front of the remaining Devastators, all alone except for the attacking Zeroes. As Tex watched, Waldron’s plane suddenly burst into flames. Fire quickly enveloped the fuselage, and the aircraft began gliding down toward the sea, trailing a thick cloud of smoke and fire. The Skipper suddenly stood up in the blazing cockpit as if he were riding a fiery chariot. In the plane’s final moments, he thrust his leg out onto the right wing. Then the plane hit the water and he was gone.”
Excerpted from “A DAWN LIKE THUNDER”, author, Robert J. Mrazek. Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group. 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY. 10017.
Epilogue: Tex Gay was also shot down with the remainder of the squadron and barely escaped his aircraft as it sank with the gunner, wounded, perhaps dead. He was found and rescued after the battle. Of the forty-eight men that flew in the two divisions of Torpedo Squadron Eight that day in the battle of Midway, only three lived to tell the tale. Fini: Islander.