Coral Sea

The Coral Sea lies between Australia to the west, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to the north, and New Caledonia to the east. It is a beautiful, usually calm body of water. The most direct shipping route from the United States to Australia passes through this area, and as a result the Japanese attempted to seize Port Moresby and Tulagi in order to isolate Australia. This lead to the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 7-8, 1942, the first major carrier battle of the Pacific War.

Battle of the Coral Sea

Following the successful conclusion of the Japanese Centrifugal Offensive on 8 March 1942, Japanese planners began to feel that there was no need to pause to consolidate their conquests and build up their defense perimeter as originally planned. Losses had been so light that the Japanese began to look for new worlds to conquer instead.

Attention soon focused on cutting the supply lines to Australia by seizing southern New Guinea and advancing to New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa. Combined Fleet commander Yamamoto further stretched an already overly ambitious strategy by insisting on taking Midway and the western Aleutians immediately following the New Guinea operation, as a way to lure the American Pacific Fleet to its destruction. All these targets were part of the original Japanese war plan, but on a much less ambitious schedule.

The accelerated schedule meant that most of the carriers of 1 Air Fleet would be able to participate in the New Guinea operation. After five months of intensive operations, from the Pearl Harbor raid to the Indian Ocean raid, 1 Air Fleet badly needed to pause for refit and replenishment of its air groups. Only Shokaku and Zuikaku could be ready in time for the New Guinea operation. Meanwhile, the other four would prepare for the Midway strike. However, neither Yamamoto and his staff nor the Navy General Staff anticipated any serious difficulties with either operation.

However, the Americans had broken into the Japanese naval codes and were forewarned of the Japanese move. Jack Fletcher was dispatched with a task force built around the Lexington and Yorktown. Halsey was just returning from the Doolittle raid and was immediately sent to the Coral Sea with the Enterprise and Hornet, but did not arrive in time for the battle.

The Japanese Port Moresby invasion force consisted of 11 transports accompanied by cruisers, destroyers, and the light carrier Shoho under Goto Aritomo. The Tulagi invasion force consisted of a single troop transport, destroyers, and smaller warships. Both forces were covered by a carrier task force under Takagi Takeo consisting of the Shokaku, Zuikaku, and supporting cruisers and destroyers, which would circle east around the Solomon Islands and into the Coral Sea to be the hammer that would smash the Americans against the anvil of Goto's force and its supporting land-based air power. It was a complex plan, with several moving parts, and it invited defeat in detail -- which was very nearly what took place.

Both sides were supported by land-based air, but neither naval commander had direct control of the land-based air units.

The Allies were aware that the Japanese plan called for an invasion of Tulagi, and accordingly the Australians pulled out their tiny garrison on 1 May 1942. Two days later, an invasion group under Shima Kiyohide took possession of the islet and began setting up a seaplane base. Fletcher broke off refueling and dashed north with Yorktown to attack the Japanese transports, leaving behind Fitch and Lexington. Radio silence hindered the two carrier commanders from coordinating their activities at this point in the battle.

The Americans drew first blood with an attack on the Tulagi force on 4 May. Takagi, with the main Japanese carrier force, was still north of Bougainville and out of range of the action. However, in spite of the lack of Japanese air cover, and a cold front that concealed the approaching American aircraft until they were almost on top of their targets, the American attack accomplished little except alerting the Japanese that American carriers were in the area. The aging destroyer Kikuzuki was bombed and driven aground, a total loss, and two small minesweepers were also sunk. Minesweeper Tama Maru was torpedoed. Three more attack waves accomplished almost nothing.  Fletcher briefly considered detaching two of his cruisers to clean up any survivors at Tulagi, but wisely cancelled the order, which would have left the ships unprotected against Takagi's approaching carriers.

The next day, 5 May 1942, Fletcher rejoined Fitch and began refueling. An H6K Mavis from Rabaul spotted the force before being shot down, but, incredibly, 25 Air Flotilla did not report this to Inoue. The American task forces were left unmolested to finish refueling before shaping course towards Port Moresby. Meanwhile, Takagi's force also refueled before entering Coral Sea from the east. Fletcher was aware that an invasion force was on the way to Port Moresby and that it was supported by a carrier force, but he had no idea of Takagi's whereabouts: It was Takagi's turn to be concealed by the cold front. On 6 May the two main carrier forces continued to sail undetected, but Shoho was bombed by a force of B-17s that failed to hit their target.

On 7 May, both sides mistakenly launched full strikes against minor targets. Takagi had decided to search the area south of his force to ensure he was not blindsided, and his pilots mistook Fletcher's service force for a carrier task force. Takagi immediately launched a full strike whick, after determining that there were no carriers in the target area, proceeded to sink destroyer Sims and cripple tanker Neosho. The Neosho's navigator was badly rattled and miscalculated his navigational fix, with the result that the tanker was not located for four days. 123 survivors were taken off and the ship scuttled, and another four survivors on rafts were rescued six days later.

Meanwhile Fletcher had send Crace with his cruiser force ahead to attack the Port Moresby invasion force, a decision that has been criticized for needlessly weakening Fletcher's antiaircraft screen. Crace was spotted and attacked by both Japanese and American land-based aircraft; fortunately, neither attack did any damage.

Meanwhile, Fletcher's search planes had discovered the two old cruisers of Marumo's Support Force. Their report was mistakenly decoded to indicate two large carriers. Fletcher launched a full strike, which was already in the air when the mistake was discovered. The strike chanced upon  Shoho and her escorts, and the light carrier was smothered under a hail of bombs and torpedoes from the 96 planes in the American strike. Inoue ordered the Port Moresby invasion force to turn back until the Americans had been properly dealt with. As it turned out, this was the closest the invasion force ever got to Port Moresby.

Shoho under attack. Naval Historical Center.

At this point, Fletcher still did not know Takagi's whereabouts, but his own location had finally reached the Japanese commander. Takagi launched a dusk strike of twelve Vals and fifteen Kates, but these were unable to locate the Americans, who were once again under the cold front. On their return, the Japanese planes were jumped by American fighters, which shot down nine Japanese aircraft at the cost of two fighters. The surviving Japanese aircraft became so confused that they jettisoned their ordnance and attempted to land on the American carriers, thinking they were Japanese. Only six or seven ever got back to their own carriers. Meanwhile, the two forces came within thirty miles of each other, so close that the Americans could make out the Japanese landing circle on their radar. However, darkness and bad weather prevented any further blows.

At 0825 the next day, 8 May 1942, Takagi took the gamble of launching a full strike shortly after launching his search planes. His search planes quickly located the Americans and, on the way back to their ships, encountered the strike group and directed it towards its target. At about the same time, American search planes found the Japanese, and Fletcher launched his own full strike. The Japanese strike consisted of 90 aircraft with well-trained crews, versus 84 aircraft with less experienced crews in the American strike. Furthermore, the American force was now well south of the cold front and sailing in bright sunshine, while the Japanese force was within the cover of the front. The only clear advantage possessed by the Americans was radar and homing beacons.

The American strike ran into bad weather, which concealed Zuikaku, but which also aided the American approach to Shokaku. The American aicrews performed rather poorly, failing to hit the ship with any torpedoes and scoring only three bomb hits.  The American torpedoes were so slow that the Japanese carrier was able to outrun them. The three bomb hits rendered Shokaku incapable of launching aircraft, but the fires were quickly put out and there was no damage below the waterline.

Unsurprisingly, the Japanese attack was more successful. Although the Japanese strike was detected 70 miles out, the fighter director was inexperienced and only eight Wildcats, which were low on fuel, were covering the force. Nine more fighters were launched at once, and twelve dive bombers were pressed into service to repel the Japanese torpedo bombers.  Lexington was caught in anvil attack (torpedo planes attacking from both sides) and was unable to avoid being hit by two torpedoes on her port side. She also took two small bomb hits. Yorktown was able to avoid the torpedoes, but was hit by a single bomb that did moderate damage.  Both carriers were still capable of flight operations.

With Shokaku rendered hors de combat and Zuikaku having taken heavy losses to its air group, Inoue ordered Zuikaku to withdraw. At this point, he believed both American carriers had been sunk, but with no naval air cover for the invasion force and with Allied land-based aircraft active around Port Moresby, he postponed the Port Moresby invasion until 7 July.  By then the Japanese had suffered catastrophe at Midway, and the invasion never took place. This made the battle was a strategic victory for the Americans.

Lexington suffers secondary explosions. Naval Historical Center.

Unfortunately for the Americans, poor damage control led to a buildup of gasoline fumes in the Lexington. Late on the afternoon of May 8, an explosion ripped through the ship. Though she was still afloat, her captain and the task force commander agreed that saving the crew was more important than saving the ship, and Lexington was scuttled after an orderly evacuation. Yorktown then withdrew and headed for Pearl Harbor for repairs. The loss of Lexington made the battle a tactical victory for the Japanese.

Yamamoto was surprised and upset that Inoue had ordered the carriers to retreat, and countermanding orders reached Takagi to pursue the retreating Americans at 0200 on 9 May. However, after a halfhearted attempt to do so, Takagi turned back for good at about 1300 on 10 May.

The loss of Lexington taught the Americans a hard lesson in the importance of damage control. Later in the war, U.S. ships damaged far more badly than Lexington at Coral Sea would be saved through improved damage control techniques.

In addition to foiling the Port Moresby invasion, the battle of the Coral Sea put two Japanese carriers out of action for the subsequent battle of Midway, while a superb repair effort allowed Yorktown to play a decisive role in that battle.

Japanese order of battle

Allied order of battle

References

Morison (1949)

Spector (1985)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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