by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War
4th Fleet Headquarters, Light Cruiser Kashimi, Rabaul Harbor, April 22
Vice Adm. Shigeyoshi Inoue read his orders with dismay. Yamamoto was giving him only until the second week in May to capture Port Moresby. This neither provided enough time for fleet carrier Kaga to be repaired nor for the deployment of sufficient land-based air cover in New Guinea. Reviewing his orders, Inoue reflected that at least the impatient fools in Tokyo had not been so foolish as to go ahead with the planned code change. There was simply not enough time to distribute the new codebooks to all the widely dispersed commands. So the change was postponed until May 27.
Like all Japanese strategists, Inoue was reluctant to send transports into waters where they did not enjoy a comfortable air superiority. Thus, control of the airspace off the east coast of New Guinea was crucial to the success of Operation MO. Although the 25th Air Fleet would contribute its Rabaul-based forces, air superiority depended upon the Strike Force fleet carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku and the light carrier Shoho. Inoue's assignment required striking at multiple dispersed objectives, but intelligence anticipated that he would face only one enemy carrier. Once he established seaplane bases at Tulagi and the Louisiades, the flying boats would provide early warning of any American task force steaming to intercept the Port Moresby invasion force. Then his carriers and the superb heavy cruiser squadron should be ample to accomplish the job.
If the Japanese landing group forced the Jomard Passage and reached Port Moresby, there could be no doubt about the outcome. The Allied base could support only a single brigade group. Its garrison was comprised of low-quality reserve formations, deficient in equipment and morale. Two months of frequent air attack and a sense of having been written off did not improve their outlook. They could not match veteran Japanese ground troops. Thus, from an Allied perspective, everything depended upon the ability of fewer than 150 carrier planes to check the Japanese invasion force.
Yorktown, Coral Sea, May 2
Rear Adm. Frank J. Fletcher commanded the American carrier task forces. His orders required him to “destroy enemy ships, shipping, and aircraft at favorable opportunities in order to assist in checking further advances in the New Guinea-Solomons area.”3 Toward this end, Fletcher resolved to operate about 700 miles south of Rabaul in an area outside of expected Japanese reconnaissance. Once he received specific intelligence of the Japanese southward advance, he planned to counter attack into the exposed Japanese flank.
While steaming to the projected strike position, a Dauntless antisubmarine patrol plane from Yorktown sighted a surfaced submarine about thirty miles from Fletcher's task force. It was the 1-21, one of the units in the Japanese patrol group. Three SBDs sortied to attack the sub. They drove I-21 down, but the critical question was whether it had radioed a sighting report. Fletcher summoned Lt. Forrest Biard, a junior lieutenant who was one of Station Hypo's skilled Japanese linguists. Biard had been assigned to Yorktown's radio intelligence unit with the job of providing tactical intelligence. Fletcher was an admiral of the old school and had little use for junior lieutenants in general and RIU officers in particular.
“Did the Jap sub report our position?” he demanded. “Sir, I don't know,” Biard replied. Fletcher dismissed him with disdain.
Later that day Fletcher's specialist in carrier operations, Adm. Aubrey Fitch, flew to Yorktown for a conference. He came with the news that Lexington's RIU officer had heard the submarine signaling. Irate, Fletcher summoned Biard again and chewed him out for his failure. A few hours later a message from Pearl alerted Fletcher that the Japanese operation was “now under way.” The admiral assumed that his foe knew his position because of the submarine report. In fact, I-21 's transmission had never reached Rabaul. Consequently, the American carrier task forces managed to get behind the Japanese I-boat screen without detection.
At 0800 the next morning the Tulagi Invasion Group began landing. Three seaplanes and Shoho's ten Zekes provided air cover, but since the invasion was unopposed, they were not needed. Because the Japanese did not expect any Allied reaction for several days, the Covering Force then steamed west to get in position to protect the Port Moresby Invasion Force.
Nine hours later Fletcher received news that Japanese vessels had been sighted in the sound between Guadalcanal and Tulagi. It was just the kind of opportunity he had been waiting for. Rather than break radio silence, he sent the destroyer Sims and the oiler Neosho to meet Fitch and instruct him to head for a new rendezvous point 300 miles south of Guadalcanal. Meanwhile, Fletcher steered north at 24 knots to attack the Tulagi Group.
Carrier Division 5, Off the Coast of Rabaul, May 3
Encumbered by orders to deliver nine Zeke reinforcements to Rabaul, plagued by poor weather, Carrier Division 5 was some 340 miles north of Tulagi. It annoyed the commander of the carrier strike force, Vice Adm. Takeo Takagi, that his two carriers were not yet in position to provide air cover for Tulagi. But, he ruefully reflected, if a sailor allowed himself to be overly bothered by weather delays, he had chosen the wrong profession. Besides, the American carrier that intelligence had alerted him about could hardly be on station yet. Takagi ordered his carriers to spend the next day refueling in preparation for the coming battle.4
Far to the north, a staff officer carried the day's news to Yamamoto. The admiral was involved in his nightly round of chess with Ugaki. The staffer told them that Operation MO was proceeding smoothly and that Tulagi was secure.
Ugaki lifted his head from the board and asked, “I imagine we captured the garrison?”
“Actually no, sir, the Australians abandoned the base before we arrived.”
“That's surprising,” said Ugaki.
Yamamoto uttered a characteristic grunt and the men returned to their game.
Map 7. Battle of the Coral Sea
The Coral Sea, May 4-6
Ten minutes before sunrise, May 4, twelve Devastator torpedo planes and twenty-eight Dauntless dive-bombers launched from Yorktown. They lifted into an overcast sky laden with rain squalls. The northern edge of a 100-mile-wide cold front had now reached the north coast of Guadalcanal. It was poor flying weather until the strike force neared the target. During the ensuing action, U.S. pilots committed the mistake—typical of both sides—of overestimating what they confronted and what they achieved. Thus, when pilots returned, they claimed they had damaged a light cruiser, a seaplane tender, and numerous transports. During the day, two additional attacks went in. By 1632 the “Battle of Tulagi” was over and the American task force was jubilant. As Yorktown steamed south for a rendezvous with Fitch, pilots compiled their claims: two destroyers sunk, along with a freighter and four gunboats; a light cruiser driven aground; and numerous other vessels damaged. That same day 5th Air Force B-26s bombed Rabaul while P-39s escorted a B-17 strike force against Lae.
The Japanese forces were far less active on May 4. Not until noon did the first report of American planes over Tulagi come to Takagi. He ordered his command's best speed southeast to engage the enemy. It was a futile gesture. On May 5, by the time his carriers arrived within striking distance, the enemy had disappeared. Later in the morning, when a four-engine seaplane failed to return to Rabaul following its dawn search, Inoue correctly assumed it had been shot down by the American carrier. Since he still did not know the enemy's location, he ordered Takagi to send his planes on a raid against Port Moresby.
Although the Americans possessed excellent operational intelligence, such is the nature of naval warfare, with small ships operating in a vast expanse of water, that Fletcher remained blithely unaware of the proximity of Takagi's carriers. He believed they were at least 400 miles ahead of him. In fact, when Yorktown and Lexington united at dusk on May 5, Carrier Division 5 was astern, less than 250 miles distant.
What some called the friction of war and others called luck now played a large role. On May 6, Fletcher's search planes turned around just short of the Japanese carriers during their morning search (see Map 7). In the afternoon, the weather fron
t brought overcast skies that concealed Takagi. On the Japanese side, a land-based search plane correctly reported the location of the American carriers but Takagi did not receive the information until the next day.
Zuikaku, Morning, May 7
The penultimate day of the Coral Sea Campaign began with senior officers on both sides still laboring under significant misapprehensions of the actual situation. Lacking knowledge of American positions, Takagi listened to the advice of his carrier specialist, Rear Adm. Tadaichi Hara, and ordered a thorough search southward in order to make certain there was no carrier behind him. Once he knew that his rear was clear, he intended to press westward to provide air cover for the Port Moresby Invasion Group. At 0600 the search went out. When a cruiser's floatplane reported the sighting of a U.S. carrier force, Takagi complimented Hara for his sage advice. Hara immediately ordered a full scale, seventy-six-plane attack. The target turned out to be the destroyer Sims and the fleet oiler Neosho, the latter having been misidentified as a carrier. The overwhelming aerial assault sank Sims and left Neosho a floating hull.
Five minutes after the strike set out, Takagi received another sighting report. A patrol plane had spotted an American task force 350 miles to the west. Hard on the heels of this unsettling news came yet another report of a force on the same bearing but only 200 miles away. When the Japanese strike force radioed that the presumed carrier target was in fact an oiler, Takagi and Hara realized they had committed a potentially disastrous blunder. With Takagi's approval, Hara ordered Zuikaku to radio an urgent recall signal to the strike force.
Yorktown, Morning, May 7
Dawn found Yorktown also sending out a search force. Ten scout planes fanned out into the northeast skies where Fletcher expected to find the Japanese. At 0815 a scout reported that he had shot down an enemy floatplane about 250 miles away, on the edge of the Jomard Passage. Station Hypo had predicted that the invasion group would use this passage en route to Port Moresby. The shoot-down confirmed that the Japanese were out looking for the American carriers and reinforced Fletcher's notion that the hostile carriers were ahead of him. Thirty minutes later came another contact report: two carriers and two cruisers off Misima on the New Guinea coast, heading south.
Fletcher reacted in the same overly credulous manner that had characterized Hara's decision. He too ordered an all-out strike. At 1015 ninety-three planes roared off of the American flight decks and flew northwest. Then the young pilot who had reported the Japanese carriers landed on Yorktown and hastened to the bridge. He anxiously informed Fletcher that he had made a coding error. What he'd actually seen were two cruisers and two destroyers!
“Young man, do you know what you have done? You have just cost the United States two carriers!” shouted Fletcher. While Fletcher and his staff debated sending out a recall order, Lieutenant Biard, Yorktown's RIU officer, went to the radio shack to listen, with dread, for any Japanese pilot making a sighting report of the American carriers.
Instead, at 1022 came a relay from Mac Arthur's headquarters. A B-17 had sighted a Japanese carrier north of Misima. Fletcher's despondency changed to elation. It was all going to work out. He ordered the strike redirected thirty miles to the new target. Minutes later came a new alarm. From 300 miles astern, Neosho radioed that she was under aerial attack. A quick glance at the charts revealed that Neosho was outside land-based attack range. Fletcher realized that he was boxed in with Japanese carriers ahead and astern.
Then Biard picked up Zuikaku's repeated homing signal with the course “280 degrees speed twenty knots.” This meant that the Japanese carriers were closing fast. But Fletcher distrusted Biard's competency. After all, five days ago Biard had been unable to inform him whether the enemy sub had made a contact report, something his counterpart aboard Lexington had easily accomplished. A signaler from Lexington interpreted Zuikaku's signal as “enemy course and speed as 280 degrees twenty knots.”5 Fletcher had no doubt whom to believe. In his mind Biard had already proven ridiculously fallible. He accepted the interpretation given by Lexington's RIU officer, even though the American task force had not recently been steaming on a course anything like 280 degrees. In fact, Lexington's RIU officer had mistranslated the Japanese.
Next came the splendid report that American planes were attacking a Japanese carrier. It was Shoho, the light carrier assigned to directly cover the Port Moresby invasion force. Shoho had entered service in early 1942. Compared to the superb veterans aboard Carrier Divisions 1 and 2, her pilots were inexperienced. The overwhelming U.S. strike force easily brushed aside the handful of Zekes flying combat air patrol. A barrage of bombs and torpedoes sent the hapless ship to the bottom. In anxious radio rooms aboard Yorktown and Lexington, a strong, sharp voice pierced the static: “Scratch one flattop! Dixon to Carrier, Scratch one flattop!”6
By 1338 the strike force was safely back aboard the carriers. Fletcher now turned his attention to finding and fighting Carrier Division 5. He continued to ignore Biard's ongoing plot of their location. With the curtain of heavy weather closing in, he decided that “there was insufficient daylight for an attack following an extensive search.” He decided to keep all of his planes available to repel a Japanese strike. He did not know that his counterparts had come to a similar conclusion.
Zuikaku, Afternoon, May 7
Carrier Division 5 recovered its strike planes and prepared for another mission. By midafternoon Hara asserted that “there is no possibility for an attack today.” Then, at 1600, a floatplane provided a contact report indicating that the American carriers just might be within range before nightfall. Had he commanded more experienced pilots, Hara might have launched a massive strike. Instead he called for volunteers from among his best aircrews. Twelve Val dive-bombers and fifteen Kate torpedo planes launched and flew south into the thick squall line. They clawed their way westward through frightful conditions but failed to penetrate the front. Two hours later they were turning back when disaster struck. Yorktown's radar had detected them and vectored its Wildcats to intercept.
The Vals unloaded their bombs, to be more maneuverable, and nimbly evaded the Wildcats. The Kates lacked agility and could not escape. At the cost of three American fighters, seven Kates and one Val were shot down. The scattered survivors struggled home through poor conditions. Amazingly, some overflew the U.S. carriers, briefly mistaking them for their own until flak started bursting around them. They managed to locate their own flight decks only because Hara turned on his search lights to help his pilots locate and land. Displaying superb skill, eighteen planes successfully completed a nocturnal landing. Only one Kate splashed during the recovery. So the abortive strike subtracted nine of the best naval aircrews from the Japanese order of battle, and for the first time the Japanese learned that they confronted two American carriers in the Coral Sea.
Battleship Yamato, Hashirajima Anchorage, May 7
During this time, Ugaki had been monitoring reports. When the Americans launched their May 4 surprise attack against Tulagi, he wrote in his diary, “The enemy seems to have attacked after detecting our situation fairly well.” Still, he and his staff remained confident. The Owada radio intercept analysts had enjoyed good success identifying the American call signs. Once Fletcher's task force broke radio silence, they correctly reported that two U.S. carriers were in action in the Coral Sea. Judging from their reported positions, Ugaki expected good news. He noted in his diary that the carrier closest to Hara's “can be wiped out with one blow”7 while the other carrier “will be nice bait for the medium torpedo bombers from New Guinea.” Instead came distressing news of the loss of Shoho.
The Carrier Exchange, May 8
Allied intelligence had contributed all that it could. May 8 would involve hard pounding as history's first carrier versus carrier battle took place. Success would go to whichever side could hit the hardest. The tactical factors were nicely balanced. The weather front that had plagued the Japanese carriers the evening before gave them valuable concealment. In contrast, the U.S.
carriers operated under good visibility. However, the Americans deployed 121 aircraft, while the depleted Japanese had ninety-five operational planes. Each U.S. carrier possessed sixty percent more antiaircraft guns than its counterparts. Coupled with their slightly larger escort screen, the Americans thus had a more powerful defensive capacity. Last, unlike Shokaku and Zuikaku, Lexington and Yorktown possessed radar.
Each side knew the approximate location of its opponent and sent out searches at first light. At 0820, Lt. J. G. Smith radioed a sighting report. Two minutes later Flight Warrant Officer Kenzo Kanno did the same. Thus, neither side was able to achieve the all-important first contact while remaining unseen itself. The Americans launched eighty-two planes—forty-six dive-bombers, twenty-one torpedo planes, and fifteen escorting fighters—against the enemy. Seventeen Wildcats remained to protect the carriers. Sixty-nine Japanese aircraft—eighteen Zekes, eighteen Kates, and thirty-three Vals—launched in turn against the Americans. Nineteen Zekes remained for combat air patrol.
The Americans proved less adept at formation flying than the Japanese. Consequently, their attacks went in piecemeal and lacked coordination. The Devastator torpedo planes launched at overly long ranges and were easily evaded. The Dauntlesses pressed their bombing runs through the Zeke screen, suffering losses in the process, and hit Shokaku three times. Lt. Joseph Powers delivered the most serious blow. Exhibiting courage for which he earned a posthumous Medal of Honor, Powers held his flak-stricken Dauntless in a dive from which he could not escape. His 1,000-pound bomb penetrated well forward in the anchor windlass room, where it ignited a huge aviation gasoline fire. The force of the explosion vented upward through the flight deck, rendering Shokaku incapable of flight operations.
