"We will go in.  We won't turn back.  We will attack.  Good luck."  

Speaking Sunday 28 to Robert Mrazek, author of the superb and cheering "A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight," re the Battle of Midway, June 4-5, 1942, the confrontation that is regarded as the turning point in the war in the Pacific when the Imperial Japanese Navy lost four of its six major aircraft carriers and was never able to recover the offensive.  All the pilots and crew of the US Task Force fought extremely well and died  

heroes of heroes that day, Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown and their escorts; however the 15 Devastator torpedo planes off Hornet, Torpedo 8, receive the deserved center of attention for how they served and how they fought against impossible odds.   Hornet's 59-strong air group of fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo planes launched on June 4 and, following the orders of Admiral Marc "Pete" Mitscher and air group Commander Stanhope Ring, flew west and unwittingly away form the Japanese carriers to the southwest.  Torpedo 8 Commander John Waldron  (right in his Devastator as he readied to take off on June 4, 1942) finally broke radio silence and told Ring he knew where the carriers were and he was going after them.  Torpedo 8 disobeyed orders, departed from the formation and flew south without fighter escort.  About 917 am in the morning, Waldron spotted the Japanese carriers, including the Agaki (bottom) that led the attack on Pearl Harbor.   Waldron tried several times to radio Stanhope Ring leading the rest of the group in the wrong direction away from the enemy.  "Stanhope from Johnny One.  Enemy sighted."   No answer from the stubborn, dutiful Ring, though the whole rest of the group could hear the call and knew where they should be.  Waldron made a decision and radioed to the squadron a simple four-sentence speech that stands today as the epitome of duty and sacrifice in service to your people, "We will go in.  We won't turn back.  We will attack.  Good luck."

Sixty-Seven Years later.

Sixty-seven years later, the controversy continues as to why Hornet's group was headed in the 

wrong direction, west away from Midway (right), why Torpedo 8 had to disobey orders and attack alone to the southwest of Midway.  Mrazek features the work of a Maryland historian and researcher, Bowen Weisheit, who used the clue of a "short snorter," -- the money you give your rescuer when picked out of the ocean --  to determine that Admiral Mitscher and Commander Ring had led the group in the wrong direction that morning and later covered up their error.   Mitscher died in 1947, an accomplished veteran.  Ring lived out his days praised for his heroism that day and never admitted to the facts.  Now we have the sequence of events in a fashion that makes sense and that explains why Waldron and Torpedo Eight had to break formation and go south to find the Japanese carriers.  Mrazek also follows the rest of the squadron -- not all were in the fifteen planes that day -- and the book reaches to Guandacanal and the epic fight with Yamamoto's fleet.  Midway was the turning point, however without the hard slogging of Guadacanal and all the other island hopping by the Marines and Army afterward, the Japanese  would have remained in control of the Eastern Pacific.   Midway and Torpedo Eight remind me of Gettsyburg and the fight on Little Round Top on the second day.  If the 20th Maine doesn't hold the flank, if Torpedo Eight doesn't draw the enemy fighters down to wave level -- and if Torpedo 6 off of Enterprise doesn't do the same right afterward -- then the coup de grace of Cemetery Ridge and the dive bombers would not have been possible.  If, if, if.  History is accident with stage makeup.

Lone Survivor of the Attack.

Below find the list of Torpedo Eight's pilots, all lost except for Ensign George Gay, (left) who crashed into the sea in the middle of the Japanese carriers, witnessed the American dive-bomber attack that sank the carriers, was picked up by American rescue team, and lived until 1994.  Squadron Commander John Waldron is circled in the group photo.  All the American torpedo planes form three American carriers failed to get a strike that day, and only 5 of 41 attacking planes survived (Torpedo 6 off Enterprise below).  Bob Mrazek uses the appropriate quote for all the pilots who fell that day, "They're still out there."  When George Gay died in 1994, at his request, his ashes were released at the spot in the Pacific where the squadron last attacked.

Lt. Commander John C. Waldron, commanding officer, KIA 

Lt. Raymond A. Moore KIA 

Lt. James C. Owens KIA 
Lt.(jg) George M. Campbell KIA 
Lt.(jg) John P. Gray KIA 
Lt.(jg) Jeff D. Woodson KIA 
Ens. William W. Abercrombie KIA 
Ens. William W. Creamer KIA 
Ens. Harold J. Ellison KIA 
Ens. William R. Evans KIA 
Ens. George H. Gay WIA 
Ens. Henry R. Kenyon KIA 
Ens. Ulvert M. Moore KIA 
Ens. Grant W. Teats KIA 
Robert B. Miles, Aviation Pilot 1c KIA 
Horace F. Dobbs, Chief Radioman KIA 
Amelio Maffei, Radioman 1 KIA 
Tom H. Pettry, Radioman 1 KIA 
Otway D. Creasy, Jr. Radioman 2 KIA 
Ross H. Bibb, Jr., Radioman 2 KIA 
Darwin L. Clark, Radioman 2 KIA 
Ronald J. Fisher, Radioman 2 KIA 
Hollis Martin, Radioman 2 KIA 
Bernerd P. Phelps Radioman 2 KIA 
Aswell L. Picou, Seaman 2 KIA 
Francis S. Polston, Seaman 2 KIA 
Max A. Calkins, Radioman 3 KIA 
George A. Field, Radioman 3 KIA 
Robert K. Huntington, Radioman 3 KIA 
William F. Sawhill, Radioman 3 KIA