"Torpedo 8" did not engage in combat, however, until nearly 10 months after it had been commissioned at
Norfolk. Too late to take part in the
Battle of the Coral Sea, VT-8 would engage at the turning point of the
Pacific War—the
Battle of Midway. In the first few days of June 1942, preceding that battle, VT-8 was on board the carrier as she steamed from
Pearl Harbor toward the American carrier assembly point northeast of Midway known as "Point Luck." On the eve of the battle, Commander Waldron called his men together and distributed a mimeographed plan of attack. He concluded by saying that if worst came to worst, he wanted each man to do his utmost to destroy the enemy. "If there is only one plane left to make a final run-in," he told his men, "I want that man to go in and get a hit. May God be with us all. Good luck, happy landings, and give 'em hell." The next day, June 4, the 15
Douglas TBD-1 Devastators of VT-8 launched from
Hornet's flight deck in search of the enemy. Before takeoff, LCDR Waldron had a dispute with the Hornet's
Commander, Air Group, Stanhope C. Ring, and
Hornet CO
Marc Mitscher about where the Japanese carriers would be found. Despite having a contact report showing the Japanese southwest of
Hornet, Mitscher and Ring ordered the flight to take a course due west, in the hopes of spotting a possible trailing group of carriers. Waldron argued for a course based on the contact report, but was overruled. Once in the air, Waldron attempted to take control of the
Hornet strike group by radio. Failing that, he soon split his squadron off and led his unit directly to the Japanese carrier group. Waldron, leading the first carrier planes to approach the Japanese carriers (somewhat after 9:00AM local time, over an hour before the American dive bombers would arrive), was aware of the lack of fighter protection, but nevertheless committed Torpedo 8 to battle. Without fighter escort, underpowered, with limited defensive armament, and forced by the unreliability of their own torpedoes to fly low and slow directly at their targets, the
Hornet torpedo planes received the undivided attention of the enemy's
combat air patrol of
Mitsubishi Zero fighters. All 15 planes were shot down. Of the 30 men who set out that morning, only one—Ensign
George H. Gay, Jr., USNR—survived. However, Torpedo 8's attack had forced the Japanese carriers to maneuver radically, delaying the launching of the planned strike against the American carriers. After further separate attacks by the remaining two torpedo squadrons over the next hour, Japanese fighter cover and air defense coordination had become focused on low-altitude defense. This left the Japanese carriers exposed to the late-arriving
SBD Dauntless dive bombers from and , which attacked from high altitude. The dive bombers fatally damaged three of the four Japanese carriers, changing the course of the battle.
Legacy On March 5, 1943,
NOLF Waldron was named after LCDR Waldron in his honor. Additionally, an
Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer was named after him, known as
USS Waldron. Torpedo 8 earned the
Presidential Unit Citation. Lieutenant Commander Waldron received the
Navy Cross posthumously, as well as a share of the unit citation. Waldron was portrayed by actor
Glenn Corbett in the 1976 film
Midway. ==Awards and honors==