This is the story of Torpedo Squadron Eight. A
story of brave men, handicapped by. obsolete equip-
ment. Brave Navy men flying to certain death

against the enemy. aes,

—
——" This is also the story of Torpedo Squadron Hight

the Second, flying the newest and deadliest planes in
the air, and the vengeance they exacted.

This is, above all, a story for you men and women
who build our Navy’s planes—Fighters, Bombers,
Torpedo Planes and other Navy aircraft—and the
thousands of vital parts that go into them.

—s

 

Thirty men left the carrier HORNET on the
morning of June 4,1942. Thirty men, air-borne in
under-armed, under-powered, old-style torpedo \

j planes. They were the best torpedo planes to be

had in the South Pacific at that time, but they were
hardly equal to the job they had todo. Their orders
were to find and destroy the carriers in a Jap fleet
reported en route to attack Midway.

Of the thirty brave men who left the HORNET
that morning, only one came back.

f

Tee SQUADRON | 8 had its beginning in Norfolk,
Va., in the fall of 1941 when Lieutenant Commander John
Charles Waldron was ordered to-organize a Torpedo Squadron.
For equipment he had some Navy-built SBN’s, 9-year old
planes, obsolete in design and performance. But they were all
he had and in those days you worked with what you could get.

His boys came to him fresh out of Navy training bases at

Miami and Pensacola, the ink scarcely dry upon their diplomas.

_ Waldron made them fly 4 hours every morning and 4 hours in

the afternoon, then had them on duty 4 hours after that. He