The Hornet's torpedo squadron (VT-8) found themselves alone at the Japanese fleet due to the fact that their torpedo leader, Waldron, had been arguing with his Squadron (fighter and dive bomber) leader. The entire Squadron was adhering to their orders in what became known as "The Flight to Nowhere". Waldron was convinced that by flying true west and not more southwest as was his hunch, they would bypass the fleet. After, out of frustration, he essentially disobeyed orders and bid his men to follow him as he peeled off in that direction. A few things; 1: His hunch was right. They found the fleet. 2: They were already too low on fuel to make it back to the Hornet anyway. 3: They knew their duty and did it. They attacked knowing their fate. 4: Zeros, at that time, were returning from a raid on the island of Midway and went in for the kill. 5: The carriers were disrupted having been busy with avoidance maneuvers compounded by Devastators arriving from another carrier. 6: All this slowed the carriers to recover the returning planes with efficiency. 7. The Japanese realized that, with the torpedo plane attack, there were American carriers in the area. 8: That realization caused dire confusion. They planned on their island attack to start the carriers out from Pearl Harbor. 9: The Japanese found themselves having to swap bombs out for torpedoes on the planes causing that slow process to have bombs and torpedoes lying about as well as aviation fuel present since they were hurriedly needing to refuel the planes. 10: Launching planes was severely held up. 11: All this in addition to the fact that even before VT-8 arrived, American bombers from Midway had been trying to drop bombs from a high altitude causing the carriers to avoidance maneuver. As suicidal and foolish as it appears on the surface, fate in the form of a hunch and a disobeyed order, a group of young men doing their duty without hesitation and causing much disruption and confusion for the enemy, VT-8 unwittingly brought about a scenario that turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. I wish to pay tribute to the 29 men lost in VT-8 including a small town only-child from Wray, Colorado, Ronald Joseph Fisher who was Radio Man/Gunner and just 20 years old.

I hope that someone with the money and means can find a way to recover the TBD's and other planes currently found around the wreck of the Lexington. There is even an F4F-3 Wildcat with victory markings of an ace. These ought to be brought up and restored.

Quite honestly, I think that all of the powers that operated dedicated, carrier borne torpedo bombers (aircraft that were designed primarily as torpedo bombers) all discovered quite early on that these were sitting ducks if there was any aerial opposition. They were not bad aircraft and occasionally scored successes but their size, slower speed and mission profile made them hideously vulnerable (...into the valley of death rode...etc.). Even a reliable torpedo (rather than the terribly poor thing it was lumbered with) would have done done little as the whole idea of a rather large, underdefended and rather slow aircraft flying a straight and level course was a defending fighter pilot's dream. Even shipboard AAA would have a great time blasting away at targets that NEEDED to fly a certain and predictable course in order to launch a weapon. I like the looks of the old lump, even though it was a bit long in the tooth even before WWII began (yes, the British swordfish made the Devastator look positively modern by comparison... and as a model builder I rather like its ungainly lines as well).

The Dauntless success at Midway meant the Devastator crew's sacrifices were not in vain.Those brave young men died with honour and they deserve to be remembered. Bless them all!!👏🙏😥

i was curious with your proclamation in the beginning, but i‘m completely convinced now👍 great video! i wonder how different WW2 would have went if the MK13 torpedo would’ve not been such a piece of garbage..

Hmm…you didn’t mention about that TBD replica from the 2019 “Midway” movie being donated to the U.S.S Midway museum? Sure it’s a movie prop but I felt it’s been a long time since we had a TBD Devastator on display; about time after so many decades.

The Devastater would have done much better if it had been equipped with a working torpedo. 1 of the big Japanese carriers wouldn't have survived Coral Sea and the other would have been a lot more damaged.

Even if the TBD-1 had been re-engined to improve its baseline performance it’s capability would still be questionable since it was equipped with the useless (at that time) Mk 13 torpedo, in parallel to the problems with the submarine version, the Mk 14.

All the Navy Bureau of Ordnance torpedoes were terrible. BuOrd blamed everyone else for the failures. That deserves its own episode

I’m so sorry you have no comments

Only just found your channel. brilliant stuff. Good work.💛

Just found your channel - great stuff! Very much enjoy the format and your choice of video topics. Keep it up and I hope you garner the viewers you deserve.

Nice channel, glad i found you.

I learned a ton from this video

Did fine at coral sea. If the sbds had shown up first at midway maybe the tbd woulda had the glory. It was obsolescent but wasn't a bad plane any more than the buffalo was.

As explained in Rex's hangar, the major performance weakness is the engine power. They can't swap out bigger engines as they'll have to redesign the whole plane; neither putting superchargers or turbos as the latter alternatives require redesign of the airframe. There's simply no space for those Same engine but with greater power is out of the equation as the r1830s with 1,000hp range are prioritized to be used in b-24s. So they're stuck with the 900hp versions And the freakin' mark 13 (mk13). They're based on the equally infamous mark 14 used by submarines. Drachinifel had a video on that

This story is kinda sad to me, to be entirely honest. Both the plane itself, and any role it would have from then on, and the pilots that piloted them, were sent out to be shot like lame dogs. Idk if it was desception, stupidity, or genuinely not understanding the flaws there, but if I was one of the six returning (no idea if any lost planes had surviving crews) I'd honestly feel a bit betrayed. Yes, it's their duty to fight. Yes, they MAY have contributed to winning (though other methods could have worked, we will never know) But being sent out, to stare at an enemy, being completely helpless with an old plane and conpletely lacking any real self defense or methods of attack... It's just sad. You can call it heroics, but I wouldn't want to know my brother/son/friend died because a commander said "just slowly move directly towards those anti aircraft guns. No, you do not get any cover. Also, your torpedoes are filled with wet napkins, we ran out of explosives. Why? Idk!"

there is most of one at the the NAS Pensacola aviation museum, or was 15 years ago

Can you cover it's involvement in the Battle of Midway

The mission was part of the problem. Very low flying, slow speed, steady, predictable course and straight over the defensive fire of the ship.

Devastator, name so ironic

The mark XIII torpedo was the biggest weapons failure in WWII, and maybe all time, with #2 maybe being the V2 rocket which had little effect in proportion ro resources consumed. Those poor airmen sacricimg their lives for a scandalously poor weapon.....

Regarding Midway and the sacrifice of the torpedo bombers: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/orRnbMpkmd3OgXU.html

The TBD Could Have Lasted A Little longer If We Had Better Torpedoes Plus Skilled Pilots With Combat Experience The Battle Of Midway With the TBD Would Have Been Different

He considers his audience to be aging military history enthusiasts with no friends…Dammit, how’d he guess?

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

The Northrop dive bomber did NOT develop into the Douglas SBD Dauntless... different manufacturers and different designers.

So the mk13 Era was never really tested and therefore were garbage in fact several sin commanders were reprimanded for testing them

The American Air Commanders at Midway were incompetent. Aircraft were largely committed by individual squadrons. The End result of that was two things. First off - the Japanese Combat Air Patrol (CAP) was able to engage these small groups of American aircraft one after the other and shoot them up badly. If they had all shown up in large groups - it would have been harder for the Japanese CAP to do that. However - because they just kept dribbling in - again and again and again and again - the Japanese had to deal with them as they came - each time - disrupting what they had been trying to do when each little group showed up. The last group to attack was Torpedo 3 and Fighting 3 - flying off the _Yorktown_ CV-5. This was the one Torpedo Squadron where the Fighters chose to go with it - instead of the Dive Bombers. Both US Squadrons were very heavily engaged by the Japanese so that the Fighters were largely just trying to keep from getting killed themselves. Their use of the Thatch Weave - made a difference though. Even though escorted - the Torpedo bombers took heavy losses. One aspect of this - was that because the Japanese had to constantly cycle the aircraft making up their CAP as they used up fuel and ammunition. To do that - the carriers had to have their decks cleared to land and launch the CAP aircraft - repeatedly. They were arming and re-arming aircraft in the Hangars of these carries - so - when the dive bombers from _Enterprise_ and _Yorktown_ showed up, not only was the CAP down low - but the Lookouts - were looking at the attacks by the Torpedo Bombers - and NOT up at the sky. Thus - the first many Japanese knew they were being attacked by Dive Bombers - was when they looked up - and saw them coming down on their ships. Bombs that penetrated the flight decks to detonate in the Hangars had fairly substantial numbers of bombed up aircraft there all full of fuel. There has been a lot of dispute as to whether or how many of the aircraft being prepared for the coming strike on the American Carriers were in the hangars or up on the flight deck - but - regardless of where they were - once they and their ordnance began exploding - very bad things happened to the ships they were on. .

Myth designed to make the families of the aircrew lost feel they had died doing something useful. The timing of the various attacks at Midway clearly show the time from the last Devastator to the first SBD was ample for the Japanese CAP to be renewed. The core problem was the Japanese air warning system was utterly unable to react to high level attacks. The SBD would have been able to attack regardless of the death of the TBD. The argument that the TBD prevented the Japanese from ranging their strike is also flawed. Had the Japanese not been distracted they would have been able to start ranging their aircraft on the decks, but still not had time to launch their strikes. The SBD would have caught the Japanese with loaded decks instead of loaded hangers. Sorry to say but the crews who died in the TBD sadly just died doing their duty. War is brutal and unfair. Least We Forget.

0:15)"The Flying Pancake" or "Flapjack" is another copy of German aircraft. The single engine Sack-1, -2, -3, -4, -5, and -6.

Mk14?. 🤔