May 7th, 1942...
After three days of sparring and scouting, the first carrier-to-carrier battle in naval history finally gets down to serious business in the Coral Sea, at 6 a.m., when Rear Adm. Chuichi “King Kong” Hara launches search planes from the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, with orders to find the American carrier fleet. The battle that begins is one of a series of blunders on both sides.
The Japanese planes roar aloft into overcast skies, which protect the American carriers steaming to the west. But at 7:36 a.m., the Japanese snoopers, peering down at an ocean whose waters change from dark blue to nearly yellow due to coral growth on the bottom, spot two American ships heading away from them. The Yankees are the oiler Neosho, known through the Pacific Fleet as the “Fat Lady,” which fueled the Lexington group the day before, and her escort, the destroyer Sims, the lead ship of her class, normally an escort to the carrier Yorktown. The excited Japanese pilot reports to Hara that he’s found a cruiser and an aircraft carrier. The Shokaku and Zuikaku promptly sortie 70 fighters and bombers to attack this presumably major target.
At 9:30 a.m., the first Japanese wave hits the two ships, 15 high-level bombers, catching the Americans with some surprise…on Sims, Chief Signalman Robert Dicken flashes recognition signals with his lamps at the intruders, in the hope the attack is a mistake. It isn’t. On Neosho, Capt. John Phillips orders his radio officer to pass the word of the attack up to Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher and the carrier force, but the nervous radio officer and overworked radioman can’t get the message sorted out. Under the bombardment, a gun captain on Neosho yells, to relieve tension, “Oh, come, come, com in and see the Fat Lady! See her qui-v-ver as she laughs! Count her double chins! Come one! Come all! Come in! Bring the missus!”
Good ship-handling by Lt. Cdr. Wilford M. Hyman of Sims evades the bombs. Some 10 more high-level bombers return at 10:38 to try again, but again do no damage. The third time, however, is the charm: 36 Val dive-bombers plummet down on Sims and Neosho, and the Japanese aviators who cut their teeth at Pearl Harbor bite hard into the slow-moving tanker, inflicting seven bomb hits on the “Fat Lady,” which herself is a survivor of Pearl Harbor.
Neosho’s guns damage one of the attacking bombers, which promptly turns itself into a kamikaze, splattering his wounded Val into the tanker’s No. 4 gun enclosure, wrecking the mount. The plane’s 80-octane aviation gasoline explodes, inflicting serious burns on the exec, Lt. Cdr. Firth, but not killing anybody. The third bomb explodes in the fireroom, killing everyone there and knocking out power. The fifth and sixth bombs blow holes in the fuel tanks, and the seventh, a near-miss, wipes out a searchlight and decapitates a seaman. Dead in the water and blazing, Neosho’s skipper orders his men to prepare to abandon ship. Some of those who get the word take it literally – they don’t just prepare, they abandon ship.
Sims, meanwhile, fends off dive-bombers with 5-inch and 20-mm shellfire and adroit maneuvering, knocking down two of the Vals, then three more. But three bombs smash directly amidships on the destroyer, and explode in the forward engine room, breaking her keel in two. The jackknifing destroyer sinks swiftly, stern first. When the fantail goes below the surface, her depth-charges cook off, setting off a severe concussion that lifts the Sims 15 feet out of the water. Lt. Cdr. Hyman orders his crew to abandon ship, but remains on his bridge.
Fireman Second Class Bill Vessia, with help from Chief Signalman R.J. Dicken, manning a damaged whaleboat, saves 14 crewmen, and they clamber aboard the smoldering Neosho. The other 235 members of Sims’ crew, including Lt. Cdr. Hyman, perish with the destroyer.
Meanwhile, back on Neosho, Cdr. Firth, battered by burns, passes out while some panic-stricken men toss life rafts into the water and then jump in after them. There’s fear forward, too, where crewmen are trying to lower whaleboats into the water, and on the bridge, where Phillips orders his communications officer to burn the codebooks and his navigator to have the magazines flooded. Sailors hearing these orders assume the worst (as do the communications officer and navigation officer) and start abandoning ship themselves. The communications officer tries to launch a boat and the navigator leaps into the water.
Phillips needs some help to restore order and it shows up in the form of gunnery officer Lt. Cdr. Thomas M. Brown, who has just cleared out his control tower and come to the bridge. Phillips has Brown take over as exec, and start calling the men back from the boats and water. At the same time, Lt. Louis Verbugge, the Engineering Officer, comes up from the abandoned engineering room, and he also supervises launching of the port motor launch, to recover survivors. Many men are still panicked, and the ship is still burning and smoldering.
There are other heroes on Neosho. Machinist Mate 1st Class Harold Bratt is in charge in the after engine room’s battlestation. When the bombs hit and knock out power, Bratt and his four men are trapped in a dark compartment full of live steam, slowly filling up with cold sea water. Bratt tells his men that they should stand fast – the only hatch leads to the fire room. But two of the men panic, punch out Bratt and knock him down, grab his emergency lantern, and flee anyway. Bratt regains consciousness quickly, and tells his two remaining men to wait until the steam has ventilated. 45 minutes later, he leads them up the after escape hatch and into the forward fire room – past the bodies of the two men who had fled earlier – and up to the main deck and temporary safety.
With rafts in the water, and the tanker burning, the next order of business is to call for help, and a navigating officer plots Neosho’s position for that message, and comes up with Longitude, 157º31E, Latitude 16º25’S. The only problem is, the actual location is Longitude 158º03E, Latitude 16º09S, as plotted later. Search planes from the seaplane tender Tangier, based at Noumea, New Caledonia, and ships obediently head for the wrong site. Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison calls the mistake “a cautionary tale for young naval officers.”
The Neosho is a giant mess, but the battle is just getting started. As the smoldering oiler drifts away from the battle, the Japanese planes fly back into formation and head home to their carriers, having expended six planes and vast amounts of energy, fuel, and time to hit two relatively minor targets. Adm. Hara himself admits he has made a blunder by hurling such a massive force at this small target: ship identification skills of search plane crews need improvement, he reports.
While Neosho and Sims meet their fates, Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher busily cuts orders, informing Rear Adm. John G. Crace, the Briton who commands Task Group 17.3, to take his force and push on ahead northwest to attack the Port Moresby Invasion Group with his ships. Crace certainly has the firepower to dispose of a collection of transports: he flies his flag in HMAS Australia, a heavy cruiser of the Kent class, and has USS Chicago, another heavy cruiser, the light cruiser HMAS Hobart, and two American destroyers, USS Perkins and USS Walke, under his command. Fletcher’s theory is that even if his carrier planes can’t catch up with the Japanese invasion fleet, Crace, regarded as an “excellent seaman” and “gallant gentleman who accepted the United States ships into his command with warmth, affection, and admiration for their efficiency,” can eliminate the transports. The weakness in Fletcher’s theory is that if the Japanese carriers stop Fletcher, then Crace’s ships are sitting ducks for the Japanese carriers. But if Fletcher defeats the Japanese carriers, the Nipponese are likely to turn back, rather than face the combination of Fletcher’s planes and guns. Furthermore, as Crace shuffles his ships into diamond-shaped anti-aircraft formation, and sets off at 25 knots, he takes with him half of Fletcher’s screening cruisers and their anti-aircraft guns, thinning his screen.
Crace’s ships steam off at 6:45 A.M. Fifteen minutes later, the Japanese light carrier Shoho launches four reconnaissance planes and five more for fighter cover. Meanwhile, Fletcher launches his search planes, and at 8:15 a.m., a Yorktown snooper, Lt. John L. Nielson, reports “two carriers and four heavy cruisers” at Latitude 10º03’S, Longitude 152º27’E, about 175 miles away. This is the news Fletcher has been waiting for: the big Japanese carriers sighted at last. Lexington starts launching her strike at 8:15, putting up 25 dive-bombers from her scouting and bombing squadrons, 12 torpedo planes, and 10 fighters, with her air group commander going along with three scout bombers. Half an hour later, Yorktown launches 27 dive-bombers, 10 torpedo planes, and eight fighters. Yorktown keeps her air group commander on board as fighter-director officers. The 96 attackers are airborne by 10:30 a.m. Some 47 stay behind as reserve and combat air patrol.
The Americans enter a cold front, battling a gusty wind from the southeast and cloud cover. Minutes after Yorktown’s planes head out, her scout planes return, and their pilots give their report. Incredibly, due to an improper arrangement of Nielson’s code contact pad, their report of “two carriers and four heavy cruisers” should actually read “two heavy cruisers and two destroyers.” The scout planes have not found Vice Adm. Takeo Takagi’s two heavy carriers, or even Rear Adm. Aritomo Goto’s invasion force, but something vastly weaker, Rear Adm. Kuninori Marumo’s Support Group, which consists of two elderly light cruisers, a seaplane carrier, and three gunboats, a force that can hardly be considered a powerful armada by any standard. And now Fletcher’s entire hammer is heading straight for it, traveling a direction at right angles to Takagi’s big carriers. For the second time in two hours, a massive aerial strike force is being sent to crush a tiny force. A furious Fletcher chews Nielson out in public and sends the unhappy aviator to his quarters. Fletcher ponders recalling the planes, but it’s too late – they have the enemy nearly in sight.
Meanwhile, Japanese planes are trailing the American carriers and reporting their location. The snoopers report Fletcher’s location to Goto on Shoho, and he orders his little carrier to prepare to attack with his nine torpedo-bombers. Other Japanese planes spot Crace’s ships racing west at 8:10 a.m.
Fortunately for Fletcher, the big Japanese boss, Vice Adm. Shigeyoshi Inouye, controlling the whole Japanese cause from his flag bridge on the old light training cruiser Kashima, parked at Rabaul, rightly worries about the safety of his loaded transports, headed for Port Moresby. With its classrooms, Kashima offers space for flag staffs to work and sleep. At 9 a.m., Inouye orders that force to turn away and keep it out of trouble until Fletcher and Crace are disposed of. At that moment, the ships are as close as any Japanese fleet will ever get to Port Moresby for the duration of the war.
In Burma, Stilwell's troops move out in their retreat to Indian. “Out at 6:30. A mess. Start ordered for 5:00. Easy pace down river. Til 11. Holcombe out. Merrill out. Heat exhaustion. Lee out. Sliney popped. Christ but we are a poor lot. Hard going in the river all the way. Cooler. All packs reduced to 10 pounds.” - Continued
