During the Battle of Midway, 15 torpedo bombers from Torpedo Squadron 8 were launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet and none of them returned. The only survivor was George Gay, a 25-year-old native of Waco, Texas. He had been shot down less than 1 year after completing the Navy Aviation Cadet Program and then had struggled to escape from his sinking plane. After freeing a jammed canopy, he had risen to the surface in the middle of the Japanese fleet and, to avoid capture and probable death, had hidden under a cushion that floated free of his aircraft.

The wounded “sole survivor” spent 30 hours in the water before he was rescued by a PBY Catalina flying boat. After recovering from his wounds in 1943, he was assigned to land-based Torpedo Squadron 11 on Guadalcanal where he flew TBD Avengers. Following the Guadalcanal campaign, he returned to the United States as an instructor pilot.