the next day, june 4, the 15 douglas tbd-1 devastators of vt-8 launched from "hornet"'s flight deck in search of the enemy. before takeoff, lcdr waldron had a dispute with the hornet's commander, air group, stanhope c. ring, and "hornet" co marc mitscher about where the japanese carriers would be found. despite having a contact report showing the japanese southwest of "hornet", mitscher and ring ordered the flight to take a course due west, in the hopes of spotting a possible trailing group of carriers. waldron argued for a course based on the contact report, but was overruled. once in the air, waldron attempted to take control of the "hornet" strike group by radio. failing that, he soon split his squadron off and led his unit directly to the japanese carrier group. waldron, leading the 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.