Surprisingly, the battle was not yet over. Takahashi’s men were exhausted, having been in the air on two missions since early morning. On the flight back to their home fleet, Takahashi’s pilots failed to sight an enemy aircraft carrier passing directly beneath their planes. The enemy however, had noticed the approach of our bombers and as Takahashi’s force neared the enemy carrier it was attacked suddenly by Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter planes.
The Val dive bombers, unusually maneuverable for their size, turned sharply to meet the diving Wildcats. The lumbering Kate torpedo bombers were easy targets for the enemy guns, and in the brief but sharply fought battle the Grummans shot down eight of the fifteen torpedo bombers, and also destroyed one Val dive bomber. Our pilots later reported the destruction of several enemy fighters, but this could not be confirmed.
Our planes fled from the hornet’s nest into which they had flown, but soon fell victim to the delusions and “mirages” brought on by exhaustion. Several times the pilots, despairing of their position over the sea, “sighted” a friendly aircraft carrier. Finally a carrier was sighted, and the remaining eighteen bombers switched on their signal and blinker lights as they swung into their approach and landing pattern.
As the lead plane, with its flaps down and speed lowered, drifted toward the carrier deck to land, the pilot discovered the great ship ahead was an American carrier! Apparently the Americans also had erred in identification, for even as the bomber dropped near the carrier deck not a single enemy gun fired. The Japanese pilot frantically opened his throttle and at full speed swung away from the vessel, followed by his astonished men.
Our crewmen were disgusted. They had flown for grueling hours over the sea, bucked thunder squalls and finally, had lost all trace of their positions relative to their own carriers. When finally they did sight the coveted American warship, cruising unsuspecting beneath eighteen bombers, they were without bombs or torpedoes—having previously jettisoned them into the sea!
On this day occurred what is clearly the greatest confusion of the entire Pacific War. Neither before this evening, nor at any time following, did such an incredible series of events take place. Not only were our pilots completely bewildered, but the combination of exhaustion and confusion caused the loss of several planes in addition to the nine shot down by the carrier-based Grummans. This loss reduced the effective striking strength of our carrier force and subsequently resulted in our sustaining crippling blows from enemy attacks.
On the same day, May 7, another large-scale air battle was fought with unusual pilot confusion. At 0820 hours a Kamikawa-Maru reconnaissance plane sighted an enemy fleet of two battleships, one heavy cruiser, and four destroyers, at 150 miles, bearing 200 degrees from tiny Deboyne Island. Admiral Yamada, then at Rabaul, launched thirty-three Type 96 Nell bombers, with an escort of eleven Zero fighters, to attack the enemy fleet. Twenty of the twin-engined bombers carried torpedoes, the remainder, bombs.
Approximately five hundred miles out of Rabaul, at 1230 hours our planes sighted and attacked the enemy, now reported as consisting of two battleships, two cruisers, and two destroyers. Our pilots reported sinking the California-type battleship, causing serious damage to one British Warspite-type battleship, and leaving one cruiser flaming in the water. We lost four bombers.
When I (Okumiya) investigated this battle after the war with members of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, I learned that the enemy fleet was commanded by Rear Admiral J. G. Crace, R.N., and consisted of the Australian heavy cruisers Australia and Hobert, the American heavy cruiser Chicago, and two destroyers, but no battleships. Further, I learned that not a single Japanese torpedo or bomb had struck any of the ships! This was actually the first instance in which our Navy pilots reported battle damages inflicted upon enemy vessels beyond those actually achieved; in this case, the discrepancy was so great as to be ridiculous. There were several reasons for this reporting episode. The targets were highly evasive cruisers and destroyers, which often confused the crews of the attacking bombers. Further, the pilots and crews participating in this particular attack lacked combat experience, and their efficiency ranged far below that of the crews which sank the Prince of Wales, the Repulse, and the Langley.
The air units which attacked Admiral Crace’s fleet were manned by hastily recruited replacements. On February 20, the original unit lost fifteen out of seventeen twin-engined Nell bombers, all with veteran crews, in an attack against the enemy carrier Lexington which at the time was raiding Rabaul. Replacements had come in slowly, the men lacked training, and crew coordination was greatly in need of improvement.
This occasion provided an ominous warning. It was the first action which proved that our reserve supply of fully trained pilots was inadequate, and that we would be faced again with this problem in the future.
Thus the sea-air battle of May 7 came to an end. It was a poor day for our fleet; American bombers had destroyed the Shoho in our first aircraft-carrier loss of the war, and we had failed to inflict retaliation upon the enemy carriers. To the naval personnel involved, the destruction of the Shoho and the subsequent inability of our planes to attack the American carriers involved great loss of pride. Aboard the Shokaku and the Zuikaku, Admiral Hara’s men grimly attended to their bombers and fighters, preparing them for combat on the following day. To “save face,” they must by any means destroy the American carriers.
Before the sun broke over the horizon on the early morning of May 8, reconnaissance planes thundered off the decks of both the Shokaku and the Zuikaku. The men still smarted from the events of the previous day; this new and uncomfortable feeling could be erased only by victory against the Americans. At 0715 hours Lieutenant Commander Takahashi led into the air eighteen fighters, thirty-three dive bombers, and eighteen torpedo bombers, which fanned out in a wide search pattern to seek the American fleet.
Less than ten minutes after Takahashi’s departure, the carrier bridge received the news that one of its reconnaissance planes dispatched earlier that morning had sighted the enemy fleet at a position about two hundred miles due south of the Shokaku. As anticipated, there were at least two aircraft carriers supported by ten other ships. The message was relayed to Takahashi, and the sixty-nine planes veered onto their new course.
A Type 97 Kate torpedo bomber first discovered the enemy carriers, and Flight Warrant Officer Kenzo Kanno, using to advantage nearby cloud formations, shadowed the American fleet, reporting by radio to the Shokaku the details of the warships. Finally, his fuel rapidly dwindling, Kanno turned for his own carrier. He had full confidence in the accuracy of his reporting, as well as his up-to-the-minute details of the exact positions of the enemy fleet.
Barely out of sight of the unsuspecting enemy vessels behind him, Kanno suddenly noticed the Takahashi air group racing toward its target. Kanno realized intuitively that despite the accuracy of his position readings Takahashi’s group could easily fail to sight the carriers on the vast ocean expanse. Without further consideration for his own safety, for to alter course now was to place himself beyond the “point of no return,” Kanno swung his bomber into a sharp turn and eased the airplane alongside that of Takahashi’s.
Every pilot in that sweeping formation knew precisely what Kanno and his two crew members were doing; he now lacked sufficient fuel to return to his own carrier, more than three hundred miles to the north. The pilots could see Kanno’s big three-seat torpedo bomber, swinging about and nosing up to Takahashi’s plane. But there was little to be said.
Shortly afterward the air group sighted the long-sought American fleet. The planes swung immediately into the attack. As reported subsequently by Takahashi’s subordinate: “Starting at 0920 hours, we made determined torpedo and bomb attacks against one Saratoga-type and one Yorktown-type aircraft carrier. At least nine torpedoes and more than ten 550-pound bombs struck the former ship, while the latter was hit with three torpedoes and eight to ten 550-pound bombs. We damaged two other vessels.”
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br /> Again our pilots had erred strongly in their evaluation of torpedo and bomb strikes, for postwar investigation revealed that in this battle the U.S.S. Lexington was hit with two torpedoes and two bombs, and that our planes scored several near misses. The other carrier, the U.S.S. Yorktown, received one bomb hit and two near misses.
We sustained heavy losses in the attack, for Lieutenant Commander Takahashi, Warrant Officer Kanno, and many other officers and crewmen died. We lost more than twenty-six bombers, or more than half of the entire bombing force.
Prior to this attack, while Takahashi’s force flew toward the enemy carrier force, lookouts aboard the Shokaku and the Zuikaku sighted an approaching enemy carrier plane force. Soon they made out more than eighty planes. The Zuikaku was fortunate; her captain placed the big ship beneath a nearby rain squall, preventing the American planes from pressing their attack. The Shokaku received hits by three medium bombs. Although her deck was shattered, preventing the launching or landing of any planes, the Shokaku was still able to maneuver with little difficulty. The extensive repairs needed forced the big ship to retire from the scene of action.
Thus ended the first naval battle which was fought entirely by the air elements of the two opponents. In this initial carrier-vs.-carrier contest, our carrier forces and those of the enemy were approximately equal in strength.
In the two days of fighting our carriers lost thirty-two planes either shot down or missing, and twelve additional aircraft which made forced landings. Our losses mounted when the Zuikaku’s captain ordered several planes jettisoned overboard to clear the decks for emergency landings of the Shokaku’s aircraft, when that carrier’s own decks became tangled wreckage. Immediately after the battle there remained on the Zuikaku as operational aircraft only twenty-four Zero fighters, nine Type 99 Val dive bombers, and six Type 97 Kate attack torpedo bombers. This number represented barely one fourth the original total of bombers aboard both carriers prior to the air battles.
These losses indicated clearly the high cost of all-out carrier warfare and for the first time enabled us to predict the outcome of future fleet engagements in which surface vessels, despite their number or power, would play merely auxiliary roles. Over separation distances of two hundred to three hundred miles between fleets, the cruisers and battleships could contribute to the battle only by employing their antiaircraft weapons to help defend their carriers against attacking enemy planes. In the two full days of the Coral Sea Battle, the approximate total of ninety-five vessels of both contestants, twenty-five American and seventy Japanese, did not exchange a single shot.
The Coral Sea episode also taught us to study closely the use of fighter planes in air-sea engagements. We discovered that, in a long-range conflict between aircraft carriers, qualitative superiority in fighter planes was not enough to stop a determined attack by enemy bombers and fighters. Quantity also was a requisite for successful defense and, even under the best possible conditions, an attack fiercely pressed home by the enemy would result in severe air losses to both sides.
Two weeks after the Coral Sea Battle, I (Okumiya) conferred with Lieutenant Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki, who as a Zuikaku group commander had participated in the entire battle. Shimazaki told me:
“Never in all my years in combat have I even imagined a battle like that! When we attacked the enemy carriers we ran into a virtual wall of antiaircraft fire; the carriers and their supporting ships blackened the sky with exploding shells and tracers. It seemed impossible that we could survive our bombing and torpedo runs through such incredible defenses. Our Zeros and enemy Wildcats spun, dove, and climbed in the midst of our formations. Burning and shattered planes of both sides plunged from the skies. Amidst this fantastic ‘rainfall’ of antiaircraft and spinning planes, I dove almost to the water’s surface and sent my torpedo into the Saratoga-type carrier. I had to fly directly above the waves to escape the enemy shells and tracers. In fact, when I turned away from the carrier, I was so low that I almost struck the bow of the ship, for I was flying below the level of the flight deck. I could see the crewmen on the ship staring at my plane as it rushed by. I don’t know that I could ever go through such horrible moments again.”
This was the frank confession of a veteran air group commander who had engaged in combat with our naval air forces since the beginning of the Sino-Japanese Incident in 1937. Shimazaki was a brilliant and courageous group commander; in the Pearl Harbor attack he commanded the second wave of 170 planes, and subsequently played a major part in our carrier operations.
Following an evaluation of his pilots’ combat reports and those of his reconnaissance planes, Rear Admiral Hara confirmed the sinking of the Saratoga-type carrier (the Lexington) during the night of May 8. In his official combat report (about the second carrier) he stated: “The Yorktowntype aircraft carrier received hits by more than eight bombs and more than three torpedoes, and was left burning. Listing heavily to port, she is believed to have sunk, although we have not as yet confirmed the destruction of the vessel.”
(As related previously, the admiral’s report greatly exaggerated damage to the Yorktown, which suffered only from one bomb strike and two near misses.)
Tactically, therefore, we considered the Coral Sea Battle as victorious for our forces. Future events proved this evaluation to be faulty for, as strategic moves would clearly reveal, the Coral Sea Battle proved a serious Japanese setback. Cognizant of the battle’s implications, Vice-Admiral Inoue postponed indefinitely the Port Moresby invasion, and recalled his troopships. These, however, were localized events.
In Japan, Admiral Yamamoto expressed deep regret at the failure of his commanders to exercise the aggressiveness necessary to exploit the damage our planes had inflicted upon the American carriers. Our ships retired from the scene of battle, although they held in their hands the opportunity to insure the destruction of the enemy carrier forces in the Coral Sea.
One of the direct reasons for this failure, of course, was the fact that few planes remained aboard the surviving Zuikaku. At best this could be regarded only as a poor excuse, for reduction in numbers is hardly a deterrent to the true battle commander. The truth of the matter was that our senior naval commanders in the Coral Sea area lacked the fighting spirit necessary to engage the enemy. This failure to pursue a temporary advantage later proved to be of tremendous advantage to the Americans. A postbattle study of the Coral Sea engagement brought out the fact that neither Vice-Admiral Inoue nor Vice-Admiral Takagi had on their immediate staffs a single air officer with combat experience in carrier-based or land-based air operations. It was incredible to realize also that both admirals likewise lacked any experience in this type of combat!
For years the Japanese Navy had operated against enemy forces on the principle that, while it might be numerically inferior to its opponents, our Navy could overcome any combat obstacles through superior tactics and aggressive fighting spirit. In a single stroke the Coral Sea Battle destroyed the validity of this concept, making it abundantly clear that the greatest weakness of our carefully created naval air strength lay in the lack of senior commanders who could command our crack units. Leadership, indispensable for any combat success, existed in the Coral Sea Battle only in those commanders who actually attacked the enemy forces.
None of our surviving officers of the Coral Sea Battle could have foreseen the terrible strategic implications of their colossal blunder. The crippled Yorktown was permitted to escape when perhaps a single torpedo or only a few bombs could have insured that vessel’s destruction. A month later, that same ship which we then permitted to survive became one of the strongest factors contributing to our Navy’s shattering defeat in the Battle of Midway.
Every last officer and crewman lost in the attacks on the evening of May 7 was a skilled, irreplaceable veteran. Had these men and their planes not been lost in the debacle of May 7, they could have participated in the attack against the enemy carriers on May 8 and, quite possibly, could have
crippled the Yorktown as our remaining planes had disabled the Lexington.
In retrospect, it is no exaggeration to state that those few Grumman Wildcats which were in the air on May 7 and which intercepted our planes on their return to their own carriers saved not only the Yorktown but also eventually many other American ships then in the Coral Sea.
CHAPTER 13
The Midway and Aleutians Operations: The Turning Point of the War
THE RESULTS OF THE Coral Sea Battle forced Vice Admiral Inoue to postpone indefinitely the planned invasion of Port Moresby. This delay in operations in the southern Pacific, however, did not seriously affect the execution of the Midway and Aleutian Operations, which our General Staff had long before decided upon. Despite its less obvious overtones, Tokyo still regarded the Coral Sea Battle only as a minor setback, and merely the first such incident after four successive months of brilliant victories. The Navy’s faith in its air arm, on which it had relied so heavily and successfully, was undiminished.
The record to date justified this confidence, since from the war’s outset all the major blows inflicted upon an enemy staggering from repeated defeats were struck by this same naval air force. Indeed, not only had we swept clean the vast ocean areas in which our ships and planes operated, but we had achieved our goals at an unbelievably low cost in ships, planes, and men. There existed no reason to expect that these same forces which now ruled the Pacific and Indian oceans would do otherwise than continue their victorious engagements against the enemy.
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