Free Stories of Faith and Courage From World War II by Larkin Spivey

Ensign Gay was the only survivor. The individual courage of every one of these pilots is almost unfathomable. During the agonizingly slow, low-altitude run, every pilot witnessed the destruction of his fellow airmen and his own leader. Any pilot could have rightly concluded that this was a futile effort. Anyone could have turned back. Not one did.
Because the hand of the L ORD my God was on me, I took courage.
    —Ezra 7:28

F EBRUARY 22
    Apparent Futility
    The sacrifice of Torpedo 8 in its attack on the Japanese strike force might seem like a gallant, but useless, gesture. The “Charge of the Light Brigade” comes to mind:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. 73
    Only in retrospect do we know that Torpedo 8’s attack was indeed not futile. In fact there are few instances in any war when such an apparently futile effort accomplished so much. As the Japanese carriers maneuvered to avoid these attacks, they could not launch their own aircraft. The American carriers may have been saved because of this delay. Of equal importance, the Zeros that shot down the aircraft of Torpedo 8 at low altitude found themselves hopelessly out of position minutes later at the climax of the battle. The skies high above the Japanese carrier fleet were undefended when the American dive-bombers appeared.
    My father used to quote Robert E. Lee: “Duty is the sublimest word in the English language.” These intrepid young pilots individually demonstrated the full meaning of this sentence. Fortunately, most of us do not face such life-and-death situations. However, we are all called to do the right thing every day. Sometimes it isn’t easy, and often we don’t see the immediate benefit. But we know what we should do.
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
    —Ecclesiastes 12:13

F EBRUARY 23
    Ensign Gay
    Watching his fellow pilots go down around him, Ens. George Gay pressed his attack on the Japanese carrier Soryu . He stayed in the air long enough to successfully launch his torpedo and was the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8. He recalled:
Everything was shooting at me. I flew right down the gun barrel on one of those big pom poms up forward… I figured the only way that I could evade all that anti-aircraft fire was not to throw my belly up in a turn away from the ship, but was just to go right straight to her and offer as small a target as I could. So I flew right down the gun barrels, pulled up on the port side, did a flipper turn right by the island, I could see the little Jap captain up there jumping up and down raising hell. Just a little bit after that… the Zeros jumped on me and… shot my rudder control and ailerons out and I pancaked into the ocean. 74
    After struggling from his sinking aircraft, Gay found a cushion floating nearby. He hid himself as best he could from the Japanese fleet, which passed by him several times that day. He was witness to the destruction of three of the enemy carriers. Gay was rescued the next day and returned to duty for other operations in the Pacific war. He eventually returned to the States, where he made frequent public appearances in support of the war effort and continued speaking as a civilian.
    In 1980 Gay came to Charleston, South Carolina, to talk to naval science cadets at The Citadel and to deliver a message calling for military preparedness. I heard him say, “I was lucky. I’ve never understood why I was the only one that came back.” He felt that his mission in life since that day was to ensure that American boys not be sent again into a conflict without the best equipment and training that their nation could provide.
    While Ensign Gay attributed his survival to luck, as Christians we can be sure that God has numbered our days for a specific reason (Psalm 139:16). It is our responsibility to be ready for the