The first book I read as a kid about the battle of Midway was Walter Lord's Incredible Victory.
As a military brat, that book inspired me to enlist and to try to be as dedicated to honor and sacrifice over self as the Torpedo 8 fliers were.
I did have the pleasure of meeting George Gay at an airshow at Miramar many years ago.
Something else that wasn’t taught until relatively recently - by the time of Midway, the Navy *knew* the Mk13 air torpedo (as well as our submarine torpedos) didn’t work. But the Navy’s Bureau of Ordinance denied that there was a problem even when people could demonstrate and replicate it; thanks to them, a lot of people including Torpedo 8 got killed for nothing because we sent them out with weapons that didn’t work - some of Torpedo 8 lived long enough (the planes really were obsolete though with the bad toros, even the Avenger couldn’t do much better) to actually complete their torpedo runs and other USN members saw the torpedoes actually score hits... but none detonated. Thus making the SBDs’ job much harder - as did the nigh-empty flight decks of the Japanese carriers. Things not taught about the battle until recently.
As far as I know, nobody at BuOrd was *ever* punished for nearly three years of forcing American sailors and aviators to die without result.