USS Hornet (CV-8)

USS Hornet, the third and final Yorktown-class carrier, had been commissioned barely six months when she carried the Doolittle raiders within range of Tokyo in April 1942. At Midway she sailed with Enterprise in Task Force 16 under Admiral Spruance. On the morning of 4 June her air group flew toward a coordinate that proved empty; her torpedo squadron, VT-8 under John Waldron, pressed on alone and charged the Japanese carriers without fighter cover. All fifteen aircraft were shot down and a single survivor, Ensign George Gay, watched the rest of the battle from the water. The squadron's sacrifice, together with the other torpedo units, dragged Japanese combat air patrol down to wave-top height and scattered the fleet's formation — setting up the dive bombers that arrived minutes later. Hornet herself was lost that October at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. The rest of her air group had become separated in the morning search and reached the battle only in scattered flights, so VT-8's charge was made entirely alone.