I don’t know a lot about the battle. I know we lost a little more than the Japs but we stopped them from maybe invading Australia.
I do think it was important that the American Navy was the first to show they could stand up to the Japanese Navy.
Very nice. My Father’s field artillery batallion shipped to the Philippines in June, 1945 to join in the invasion of Japan. If the invasion had taken place, I might not be here.
Thank you for the posting. A very interesting story.
Coral Sea was unprecedented: the first battle fought at sea, where the opposing warships never caught sight of each other.
Every bit of attack and defense was conducted by aircraft ... a hint of things to come.
Following Coral Sea the Americans never stopped advancing and the Japanese never stopped retreating The USN never lost another battle to the Japanese. IMHO the battle was far from a draw. The Japanese advance down the Solomons was stopped never to start again following the decisive victory at Midway. While admittedly hind sight I think we sometimes fail to see the importance of seemingly small events. I think the Coral Sea was one of these events.
One day while visiting my dad, (he served on USS Yorktown from 1940 until she was sunk at Midway), he seem sort of off in a different world. I asked what was on his mind. He said he was just thinking about a question never asked or answered. I asked him what he meant. He told me that on the day before the battle of the Coral Sea began, the engine room chief my dad worked for told him, the next time we go to GQ, your new GQ station is Engine room lower level. Some one else will take your place in Repair 5. My dad did as the chief instructed and never asked why? (in those days the only answer expected by the chief was aye, aye). The next day they went to GQ. My dad, as instructed, remained in the engine room. Nothing happened to the ship that day. The next day, the Japanese got lucky and dropped a 500 lb. bomb on the Yorktown. It went through the flight deck and the armor deck and exploded in Repair 5s area. Most of the men at that station were killed, including the young man assigned to replace my dad on #2 hose team. My dad often wondered why the chief changed his GQ station, but you never asked a chief in those days why he did anything. My dad said that move saved his life.