George H. Gay Jr.
Naval Aviator · 1917–1994
Who is George H. Gay Jr.?
George Henry Gay Jr. was a United States Navy aviator who became the sole survivor of the fifteen Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber crews of Torpedo Squadron 8 launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet at the Battle of Midway. On 4 June 1942, flying as part of Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron's squadron, Gay pressed his low, slow torpedo bomber into an attack on the Japanese carrier Soryu near Midway Atoll without fighter escort. His radioman and gunner, Robert K. Huntington, was killed and Gay himself was wounded before his aircraft was shot down; every other aircraft in the squadron was also lost that morning. Gay hid in the water beneath a floating black rubber seat cushion for more than thirty hours, watching much of the remaining battle unfold around him, including the American dive-bomber strikes that sank three Japanese carriers, before he was rescued by a U.S. Navy PBY Catalina flying boat. He later described his ordeal in interviews, in a combat debriefing shortly after the battle, and in his own memoir, Sole Survivor, and remained a widely interviewed veteran and public speaker on the battle for the rest of his life, working as a commercial airline pilot after the war.
Sources: George Gay, Sole Survivor: The Battle of Midway and Its Effects on His Life (1980) · Ensign George H. Gay Jr., combat debriefing account, USS Hornet air group war diary, June 1942 · Walter Lord, Incredible Victory (1967)