The
Battle of Coral Sea, fought in the waters southwest of the Solomon Islands and eastward from New Guinea, was the first of the Pacific War's six fights between opposing aircraft carrier forces. Though the Japanese could rightly claim a tactical victory on "points," it was an operational and strategic defeat for them, the first major check on the great offensive they had begun five months earlier at Pearl Harbor. The diversion of Japanese resources represented by the Coral Sea battle would also have significant consequences a month later, at the
Battle of Midway. The Coral Sea action resulted from a Japanese amphibious operation intended to capture Port Moresby, located on New Guinea's southeastern coast. A Japanese air base there would threaten northeastern Australia and support plans for further expansion into the South Pacific, possibly helping to drive Australia out of the war and certainly enhancing the strategic defenses of Japan's newly-enlarged oceanic empire.
The Japanese operation included two seaborne invasion forces, a minor one targeting Tulagi, in the Southern Solomons, and the main one aimed at Port Moresby. These would be supported by land-based airpower from bases to the north and by two naval forces containing a small aircraft carrier, several cruisers, seaplane tenders and gunboats. More distant cover would be provided by the big aircraft carriers
Shokaku and
Zuikaku, with their escorting cruisers and destroyers. The U.S. Navy, tipped off to the enemy plans by superior communications intelligence, countered with two of its own carriers, plus cruisers (including two from the Australian Navy), destroyers, submarines, land-based bombers and patrol seaplanes.
Preliminary operations on May 3-6 and two days of active carrier combat May 7-8 cost the United States one aircraft carrier, a destroyer and one of its very valuable fleet oilers, plus damage to the second carrier. The Japanese, however, were forced to cancel their Port Moresby seaborne invasion. In the fighting, they lost a light carrier, a destroyer and some smaller ships.
Shokaku received serious bomb damage and
Zuikaku's air group was badly depleted. Most importantly, those two carriers were eliminated from the upcoming Midway operation, contributing by their absence to the defeat of the Japanese fleet viewed by many as the turning point of the war.
Build Up to the Battle
Good communications intelligence allowed the U.S. Pacific Fleet to prepare to meet the planned Japanese offensive against Port Moresby, though available resources provided little margin for error. The freshly overhauled carrier
Lexington (CV 2), rushed out from Pearl Harbor, joined Yorktown (CV 5) in the probable action area on May 1, doubling Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher's carrier forces and bringing along another experienced flag officer, Rear Adm. Aubrey W. Fitch. These carriers and their escorts engaged in several days of refueling from the oilers
Neosho (AO 23) and
Tippecanoe (AO 21), while awaiting the arrival of two Australian cruisers to reinforce the six already on hand.
On May 3, a small Japanese naval force carried out a landing at Tulagi, on the northern side of the Coral Sea, where they quickly established a seaplane base to provide reconnaissance deeper into Allied waters. Leaving
Lexington behind and detaching
Neosho to join her, Rear Adm. Fletcher took
Yorktown off to interfere with the landings. On the morning of the 4th, his planes hit the invasion force. Though results were modest, to some extent due to humid air fogging the dive bombers' sights, the destroyer
Kikuzuki was fatally damaged and a few other ships and seaplanes were sunk.
Fletcher then turned back south, rejoining Fitch on the 5th to top off his fuel tanks. The Japanese were now advancing into the Coral Sea with the Port Moresby invasion force and the separate covering force and aircraft carrier striking force. Both the American and Japanese carrier commanders spent the 6th moving westward, unaware just how close they had come -- at one point they were but 70 miles apart!
The Battle Begins
The first day of the carrier battle of Coral Sea, May 7, 1942, saw the Americans searching for carriers they knew were present and the Japanese looking for ones they feared might be in the area. The opposing commanders, Rear Adm. Fletcher and Japanese Vice Adm. Takeo Takagi and Rear Adm. Tadaichi Hara, endeavored to "get in the first blow", a presumed prerequisite to victory (and to survival) in a battle between heavily-armed and lightly-protected aircraft carriers. Both sides, however, suffered from inadequate work by their scouts and launched massive air strikes against greatly inferior secondary targets, which were duly sunk, leaving the most important enemy forces un-hit. Japanese scouting planes spotted the U.S. oiler
Neoshoand her escort, the destroyer
USS Sims (DD 409), before 8 a.m. in a southerly position well away from Rear Adm. Fletcher's carriers. Reported as a "carrier and a cruiser," these two ships received two high-level bombing attacks during the morning that -- as would become typical of such tactics -- missed. Around noon, however, a large force of dive bombers appeared. These did not miss.
Sims sank with very heavy casualties and
Neosho was reduced to a drifting wreck whose survivors were not rescued for days. Meanwhile, a scout plane from
Yorktown found the Japanese covering force, the light carrier
Shoho and four heavy cruisers, which faulty message coding transformed into "two carriers and four heavy cruisers."
Yorktown and
Lexington sent out a huge strike: 53 scout-bombers, 22 torpedo planes and 18 fighters. In well-delivered attacks before noon, these simply overwhelmed the
Shoho, which received so many bomb and torpedo hits that she sank in minutes. Her sinking was marked by some of the battle's most dramatic photography.
Adding to the confusion, if not to the score, Japanese land-based torpedo planes and bombers struck an advanced force of Australian and U.S. Navy cruisers, far to the west of Adm. Fletcher's carriers. Skillful ship-handling prevented any damage. Australia-based U.S. Army B-17s also arrived and dropped their bombs, fortunately without hitting anything. All this had one beneficial effect: the Japanese ordered their Port Moresby invasion force to turn back to await developments. Late in the day, they also sent out nearly 30 carrier planes to search for Fletcher's ships. Most of these were shot down or lost in night landing attempts, significantly reducing Japanese striking power. The opposing carrier forces, quite close together by the standards of air warfare, prepared to resume battle in the morning.
Fight that Would Impact Battle at Midway
Before dawn on May 8, both the Japanese and the American carriers sent out scouts to locate their opponents. These made contact a few hours later, by which time the Japanese already had their strike planes in the air. The U.S. carriers launched theirs soon after 9 a.m., and task force commander Rear Adm. Fletcher turned over tactical command to Rear Adm. Fitch, who had more carrier experience. Each side's planes attacked the other's ships around 11 a.m. At that time the Japanese were partially concealed by thick weather, while the Americans were operating under clear skies. Planes from
Yorktown hit
Shokaku, followed somewhat later by part of
Lexington's air group. These attacks left
Shokaku unable to launch planes, and she left the area soon after to return to Japan for repairs. Her sister ship,
Zuikaku was steaming nearby under low clouds and was not attacked.
The Japanese struck the American carriers shortly after 11 a.m., and in a fast and violent action, scored with torpedoes on
Lexington and with bombs on both carriers. For about an hour,
Lexington seemed to have shrugged off her damage, but the situation deteriorated as fires spread throughout the ship. She was abandoned later in the day and scuttled.
Yorktown was also badly damaged by a bomb and several glancing blows, but remained in operational condition.
By the end of the day, both sides had retired from the immediate battle area. The Japanese sent
Zuikaku back for a few days, even though her aircraft complement was badly depleted, but they had already called off their Port Moresby amphibious operation and withdrew the carrier on May 11. At about the same time
Yorktown was recalled to Pearl Harbor. After receiving quick repairs, she would play a vital role in the Battle of Midway in early June.