[Jacquerie]

Thanks to CNO Ernest J. King, and despite the "Europe First" doctrine, he determined to fight the Japs with the Navy he had.

https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/people/chiefs-of-naval-operations/fleet-admiral-ernest-j--king.html

[MeganC]

God only help us if we ever need to fight a war like this again because we’ll be fighting the enemy abroad and the liberals at home.

[ClearCase_guy]

My favorite part is that the carrier Yorktown was so badly damaged at Coral Sea that it would clearly be out of the fight for a while -- Japan thought she was sunk. US experts said she would be in dry dock for at least two weeks.

Took 48 hrs. She arrived at Pearl Harbor 27 May, sailed out on 30 May and performed a crucial role at Midway starting 4 June.

We could do things back then.

[colorado tanker]

The Japanese Navy wanted to invade Australia, but the Army opposed on the ground that it did not have the strength, particularly given Australia's geography.

An alternative was proposed to cut Australia off from America, American protection and supplies.

These troop transports were to implement a plan eventually to occupy New Caledonia, Samoa and Fiji. Coral Sea put paid to that plan. A bonus was saving the Australian toe hold on New Guinea at Port Moresby. That would later be the base from which MacArthur and the Aussies would retake the island.

A very important battle.

[Spruce]

[Larry Lucido]

Ping

[yarddog]

I think the most important result of Coral Sea was that it was the first time anyone had gone toe to toe with the Japanese Navy and done OK. We knew we could win.

It was a slight tactical victory for the Japanese but it did stop them.

[Calvin Locke]

I think King chastised Nimitz for not having the cruiser force chase after the retreating IJN at Coral Sea.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Good article but there are a couple of errors in the captions.

"Japanese aircraft aboard Kuikaku prepare for a morning sortie on May 5, 1942." Should read "Zuikaku", not "Kuikaku".

"Bypassing an American destroyer, a Japanese dive-bomber heads straight for the carrier Lexington." The reference to a "dive-bomber" should read "torpedo-bomber". The aircraft is a Nakajima B5N "Kate" torpeod-bomber.

[Red Steel]

Today is VE day.

[Jack Hammer]

God preserve and watch over all the brave kids who died there...

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Thanks to CNO Ernest J. King, and despite the "Europe First" doctrine, he determined to fight the Japs with the Navy he had.

In the diary, according to the newspaper, General Eisenhower in early 1942 described Adm. Ernest J. King, commander of the United States fleet as World War II began, as an “arbitrary, stubborn type” and a “mental bully.” One way to help win the war, General Eisenhower is reported to have written, was “to get someone to shoot King.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/19/archives/eisenhower-diary-said-to-assail-macarthur-and-adm-king-in-42.html

The crisis the US and Britain faced was a critical shortage of destroyers. Adm. King was fixated on the critical needs in the Pacific, which was quite understandable but also left US shipping to the tender mercies of Operation Drumbeat. Hundreds of freighters were sunk by U-boats in the first year of US involvement in WWII. King was reluctant to learn ASW from the Royal Navy, even tho that was where the Allies’ ASW experience resided.

[Burma Jones]

I think it was the first naval battle in history where the contending fleets never saw each other.