9

Thirty men left the carrier Hornet on the morning of June 4, 1942.
Tnirty men, air-borne in under-armed, under-powered, old-style torpedo 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 to do. 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.

Flying low beneath broken clouds, Torpedo Squadron Eight went after the.
Japs. They lost contact with the other squadrons off the Hornet during the first
hour, so when they finally topped the horizon and spotted the Jap warships moving
away from Midway, they were completely alone.

Breaking radio silence, they notified the Hornet of the position and
strength of the enemy, then dropped to torpedo attack level. Skipper Waldron wig-
gled his wings, opened the throttle, and headed straight for the target, the squad-—
ron screaming after him.

The sky swarmed with Zeros. Torpedo Hight had neither fighter cover nor
accompanying dive-bombers to divert some of the concentrated defensive fire from
the Jap warships. The squadron hit the curtain of fire like a pine plank heading
into a buzz saw. Anti-aircraft bursts were searing faces and tearing off chunks
of fuselage from the old planes but the Jap carriers were dead ahead, crowded with
planes rearming and refueling. Torpedo Eight had a mission and nothing was going
to stop them! .

The odds were heartbreaking. Plane after plane of the gallant squadron
plummeted into the sea; yet the few who were left kept boring in, dropping their
torpedoes at point blank range almost under the shadows of the carriers. In this
way they made certain for the task force and for the Navy that the Japs! air power
was crippled from the start.

One last plane dropped its torpedo, zoomed over the carrier, then disap-
peared into the sea. Forty minutes later, divebombers from the Hornet arrived and
pounded the confused Jap fleet into defeat.

The following day, a PBY patrol plane swooped over the scene of the action
and spotted a lone wounded flier floating in the oil slicks. He had watched the
whole action from start to.finish from beneath the shelter of a black seat cushion,
a cushion held above his head to hide him from Jap strafing planes. They picked
him up and flew him to Midway for nospitalization.

His 29 squadron mates who "did not make it back" were listed as "Missing
in Action."

Bill Abercrombie was a member of the Kansas Freshman Football Team in
1936. Mike Getto tells me that Bill Abercrombie was a good football prospect and
a sreat fellow. Bill's father, C. W. Abercrombie, is with the Hartford Fire In-
surance Company, Kansas City Stock Yards, Kansas City 15, Missouri.

Your Commandsr-in-Chief, and mine, Harry S. Truman, was a beyhood friend
of mine. He grew up-in Indspendence, Missouri, where we went tc Ssuhooi. ucgether.
Bess Wallace Truman livca thee blocks from me, and Harry Truman lived an equal