Doing research on the internet ... thought this was interesting about Midway as well. A little long but good.
ENS Albert K.. Earnest
Quote:
"The USS Hornet, CV 8, sailed on March 1, 1942, for the Pacific Theater of Operations. At that time, I only had about 200 hours of flight time. About one half the pilots of Torpedo 8 were left behind in Norfolk to accept delivery of the new TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, while the ship carried the remaining Air Group 8 crews, which included the older TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, to the war zone. I was one of the pilots left behind to ready the TBF's. The new plane was almost as fast as a fighter. It carried a pilot and a crew of a turret gunner-radioman, and a tunnel gunner. It could launch its torpedoes at 200 knots rather than the 100 knots of the Devastator. We flew them cross country to Alameda, CA, and then to San Francisco where they were
loaded on the sea-land transport Hammondsport for delivery to Pearl Harbor. We went by a Navy transport, and when the Hammondsport arrived, we took the first six that were off-loaded and prepared them for a flight to Midway.
From Pearl Harbor, it is a 1200 mile open water flight to Midway Island. This was by far the longest flight I had ever made outside of sight of land. We were assigned two PBY Catalina pilots to act as navigators. One flew in each of the two three plane sections of TBF's that made up our flight. When we got to Midway on June 1st, we saw quite a few B-17 Flying Fortresses, many F4F Wildcats, some B-26 Marauder bombers with torpedoes, and the Marines had about 20 Brewster Buffalo's. The Brewsters were not very good at altitude, and were at a disadvantage. There were also a large group of PBY-5 Catalinas here. Some were amphibians, the 5 A and some could only take off and land on the water, the - 5.
Early each morning, we sat in the cockpits of our TBF's waiting for the search planes to see something. Finally, on June 3rd, a PBY Catalina saw the forward component of the Japanese force coming from the northwest. None of their carriers were sighted. We knew the Japanese had four carriers out there, Hiryu, Akagi, Soryu and Kaga. On June 4th, as I was walking to my plane, I picked up a $2 bill that was laying on the runway, and put it in my bill fold as a good luck omen. It is still there today. Shortly thereafter, another PBY spotted the Japanese carriers bearing 320 degrees from Midway. We were immediately given orders to launch.. We also were told that all our carriers were back defending the Hawaiian Islands, and that the planes stationed here were Midway's sole defense.
Five minutes out from Midway, my turret gunner Jay Manning could see signs of bombing back at the island. As we neared our targets, we were jumped by about 20 Zero's. Cannon shells and machine gun bullets tore into our plane immediately killing the top turret gunner Manning. There was blood every where. Harry Ferrier, at the tunnel gun, felt blood dripping on him, and when he looked up into a red haze saw that Manning was dead.
Our flight of six dropped to 200 feet, and made for the carriers that we could see in the distance. Just as we were doing this, the control cables to the elevator were shot away so I decided to go after a nearby cruiser. As I kicked the plane around and turned toward it, cannon shells were dancing on my wings. A piece of shell fragment hit me in my right cheek. I started to bleed. The gyro compass was shot-up and I lost it and its repeater so I was without a compass. The stick went limp in my hands, and I began to sweat. With Japanese buzzing around, and a fighter on my six, continuing to shower us with shells, I started my attack. I opened my bombay doors and got ready to release my torpedo. Simultaneously, I lost my hydraulics, and the tail wheel dropped down so the tunnel gun became partially blocked. Then Ferrier got hit too, and was out of the battle. Before our plane was out of the fight because it was difficult to control and was losing altitude, I released the torpedo.
As we continued to sink toward the water, I prepared for ditching. As I approached the water, I started to roll in up elevator trim as I would in a normal landing. The plane shot up and started to gain altitude. If I'd been a more experienced pilot, I only had about 400 hours by then, I would have anticipated this reaction, and tried to fly the plane by elevator trim as soon as the stick went limp. As I gained altitude, I was jumped by two other fighters. I used every evasive maneuver of I could think of. There were some B-26's in the area, and finally the Japanese planes left for no apparent reason. Maybe they got called back, were out of ammo, short of fuel or distracted by the Marauders. In any event, I was happy they were gone. The silence over the roaring of my engine was startling. No sound of cannon or machine gun fire. No bing, bing, bing.
I now couldn't see anything between the Japanese fleet and where Midway should be. The Japanese fleet was steaming as before. Everything looked normal. There were no planes, none even in the water. It appeared as if there were no damaged or sinking ships. Without a compass,, all I had was the Sun which was still low in the East. I first flew South to clear the area, and then I headed east towards where I thought Midway was located. I gained altitude to get over some cloud cover looking for Midway. I spotted the small island of Kure off in the distance, and made for it. Harry Ferrier, the tunnel gunner regained consciousness. I asked him to see if the torpedo had been launched. He couldn't tell because the window was all covered with blood. Shortly, I could see smoke rising from Midway which appeared to be 40 to 50 miles away. I adjusted my course and turned for it. We were flying slowly because there was no way to close our bombay doors or retract the tail wheel. We were badly shot up. Later I would find out that our plane had seventy holes in it.
As we approached Midway, we did the approved recognition turns to identify us as a friendly. I put the gear lever in the down position, but only the left wheel came down. I did some pull ups to try and shake the other wheel down, but was afraid to pull too many "G's" for fear of shaking something more important off the plane. I made two approaches, and got waived off both times. They may have thought we still had our torpedo. There were two wrecked B-26's on the runway. I said to hell with it, and brought her in. The plane touched down fine, and as it lost airspeed the right wing dropped and we gently turned off the runway. I sat in the cockpit somewhat stunned at being there without any of our other Torpedo 8 planes around. I thought I was going to get hell for pulling out of formation. It hit me, that we were the only one of our flight of six to have made it back. Then some planes from the Hornet, from VB-8, started to land. They were short of fuel and came here instead of going back to the ship. I realized we did have carriers out there.
There is one more widely known surviving VT-8 pilot George Gay (since deceased) who was part of the group who stayed with the Hornet. He was shot down, and saw the Battle of Midway from the water. Many think he was Torpedo 8's sole survivor. In fact Gay wrote a book titled "Sole Survivor". If I ever get around to writing my book on Midway, I intend to title it the "Other Sole Survivor". Because Gay was rescued from the water, and could give a first hand account of the battle, he was sent home to-do a War Bond Tour. With some of my squadronmates, I was sent to Guadalcanal to continue the fight, which is another story."
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