first carrier planes to approach the Japanese carriers (somewhat after 9:00AM local time, over an hour before the American dive bombers would arrive), was grimly aware of the lack of fighter protection, but true to his plan of attack committed Torpedo 8 to battle. Without fighter escort, underpowered, with limited defensive armament, and forced by the unreliability of their own torpedoes to fly low and slow directly at their targets, the Hornet torpedo planes received the undivided attention of the enemy's combat air patrol of Mitsubishi Zero fighters. All 15 planes were shot down. Of the 30 men who set out that morning, only one—Ensign George H. Gay, Jr., USNR—survived. Their sacrifice, however, had not been in vain. Torpedo 8 had forced the Japanese carriers to maneuver radically, delaying the launching of the planned strike against the American carriers. After further separate attacks by the remaining two torpedo squadrons over the next hour, Japanese fighter cover and air defense coordination had become focused on low-altitude defense. This left the Japanese carriers exposed to the late-arriving SBD Dauntless dive bombers from and , which attacked from high altitude. The dive bombers fatally damaged three of the four Japanese carriers, changing the course of the battle. Torpedo 8 earned the Presidential Unit Citation. Lieutenant Commander Waldron received the Navy Cross posthumously, as well as a share of the unit citation. Waldron was portrayed by actor Glenn Corbett in the 1976 film Midway. Namesake The USS Waldron (DD-699), an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, was named in his honor. Naval Auxiliary Air Station Waldron Field, part of the NAS Corpus Christi, Texas complex, was named in his honor. Closed in the 1950s, NAAS Waldron Field was later reactivated in the early 1960s as an outlying field renamed OLF Waldron Field' in support of Student Naval Aviator primary flight training operations at NAS Corpus Christi, a role it continues to have today. Camp Waldron of the Farragut Naval Training Station on Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho was named in honor of LtCdr Waldron. The camp, designed to house and train 5,000 naval recruits at a time, opened on 8 November 1942. The very popular "Waldron Deck" parking structure, named in the Lieutenant's honor, set just south of Soldier Field in Chicago, is the premier location for Bears fans to gather for tailgating on game day. John C. Waldron Bridge (renamed in his honor in