Battle of the Coral Sea

Britannica ^ | Apr 27, 2023 | Editors

[Jacquerie]

Battle of the Coral Sea, (May 4–8, 1942) World War II naval and air engagement in which a U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese invasion force that had been heading for strategic Port Moresby in New Guinea.

By the end of April 1942 the Japanese were ready to seize control of the Coral Sea (between Australia and New Caledonia) by establishing air bases at Port Moresby in southeastern New Guinea and at Tulagi in the southern Solomons. But Allied intelligence learned of the Japanese plan to seize Port Moresby and alerted all available sea and air power.

When the Japanese landed at Tulagi on May 3, carrier-based U.S. planes from a task force commanded by Rear Adm. Frank J. Fletcher struck the landing group, sinking one destroyer and some minesweepers and landing barges. Most of the naval units covering the main Japanese invasion force that left Rabaul, New Britain, for Port Moresby on May 4 took a circuitous route to the east, which invited a clash with Fletcher’s forces.

[blam]

" By August 1945 the US had 21 Essex-class carriers, each of which was more capable than anything the USN had in 1941."

By the end of the war, the USA had 109 carriers in the Pacific, most were Escort Carriers.

The sub I was on played war games with the USS Essex in the early 60's.

[jjotto]

Aussies shocked the Japs for a few weeks when a couple dozen American P-40s were diverted to them after the fall of Rubaul. Nearly suicidal defense of northern Australia/Port Moresby bought some time for Americans to show up. Aussie heroes, for sure.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure, AB.

Desk jockeys weren't prepared to lead men in combat on or under the sea, or on land. The small initial US submarine fleet had to be given a new commander just to get things moving. Some skippers had to be relieved. In that crucial first year of the war, Adm Halsey would go ahead with a mission if he had even one working aircraft for either surveillance or "air support".

Less than three months after Pearl Harbor, Doolittle's Raid struck their capital. It didn't achieve much, technically, but was a massive humiliation, and every Japanese realized, big trouble now. Meanwhile, most of the US industrial production and shipbuilding was in eastern N America, and out of reach.

Six months in, the Japanese lost their best carriers and many of their best pilots (best carrier squadrons in the world up to that time). The US sent its three remaining carriers, under-experienced pilots, and used Midway itself as the fourth carrier. The US carriers hovered out near the Japanese flight radius, which exceeded US flight radius at that point in the war, on a somewhat overcast day. US planes could strike the Japanese carriers, then refuel and whatnot on the island, while the Japanese could not do that.

The US taking of Guadalcanal surprised the Japanese in its early scheduling and rapidity, and they had no idea US fighting men would just hang in there and kick the living crap out of them. Abandonment of the effort to retake Guadalcanal meant the plan to control the air and sea along the Solomons using land-based aircraft was at an end.

Japan's cities, then as now, are coastal and vulnerable. It had a great industrial base (not as great as even prewar US') but had to import raw materials. With the arrival of US long-range B-29 bombers in large numbers (over 2500 were built during the war, and as many as 1000 at a time bombed Tokyo late in the war) every city, port, factory, and even moving trains were hit. Before Hiroshima, 45 Japanese cities had been pretty much burned to the ground via conventional incendiary bombing.

Best case scenario, the Japanese would need more early success against the US Navy, would need to raise, train, and equip another huge land army, take the western coast (probably just parts of California), fight its way across 1000 miles of altiplano, hundreds more miles to reach the Mississippi...

The Japanese attack on the US didn't make sense then, doesn't make sense now, and can't be made to make sense.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks. The Solomons campaign by the Japanese was an effort to establish land-based air supremacy with a view of (best case) conquest of Australia. Had they thought of that prior to attacking the US (or just instead of that) the Pacific War would have taken much longer, and the US nuclear arsenal might have been used first in Europe, or if only used against Japan, would have started later, when the inventory of a-bombs was large.

[SunkenCiv]

More of everything, a wide variety of ships (including the Higgins land craft) and over 200K aircraft if memory serves.

[Grampa Dave]

Also, with some good intel from: Joseph Rochefort and his crews.

[Grampa Dave]

“Shortly after, Pearl, American men were circling the cities looking for induction centers.”

We had two relatives signup shortly after the attack on Pearl. One was a younger cousin of my Dad. He joined the 45th and fought in Africa, Italy and was serverely wounded in Italy and survived with a metal plate in his head.

The other was a maternal uncle, who was a collegiate tennis player and a great shot. He became a radio operator, and he and his helper somehow survived physically. Mentally, it took him about 2 decades to mentally relax particuliarly at bedtime. He never talked about his service.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Best case scenario, the Japanese would need more early success against the US Navy, would need to raise, train, and equip another huge land army, take the western coast (probably just parts of California), fight its way across 1000 miles of altiplano, hundreds more miles to reach the Mississippi...

 

What always amazed me is the sheer lack of preparation they had before kicking off the shootout with us and the rest of the western powers. They didn't squirrel away inventories of critical resources beforehand. They worked with the principle as they had with their conquests in Asia, just loot and add inventory as they went, which is tenacious as it gets since there is no contingency for error or setback. Simply seize what they needed as they went across the Pacific, but that entailed gathering it, shipping it back to Japan, processing, manufacturing before arriving at a finished product of use. All complicated by another aspect of ill preparation - lift capacity. They had what they had for shipping and were not positioned for wartime manufacturing compared to us. New construction was feeble with long timetables, fraught with QA/QC issues. The loss of a ship, ANY ship, was a real setback, at times having severe impact on particular plans or strategies. Even damage was almost as good as a sinking since their shipyards were terribly slow and less than competent at addressing repairs.

 

 

The Japanese attack on the US didn't make sense then, doesn't make sense now, and can't be made to make sense.

 

But it made sense to them, from their perspective. They had done their homework, knew the Euro powers were in no position to defend their holdings - the massive loss of life during the First World War and the economic collapse that swept the world afterwards had seen to that. The last people left who could be deemed as an existential threat to their plans for economic & political domination of the Asia/Pacific hemisphere was us. We were another faction of the Caucasian West that were set to be driven out and blocked from having any presence or influence. We were already on their crap list, after not helping them with claims before the League of Nations against Euro powers in the Pacific in the aftermath of WW1, and blocking Japanese immigration in the early 1920s. Those two issues got the Japanese public stirred up, as exploited by opportunist politicians and military, souring relations and getting us crossed off their friends list. Then there was the philosophical component that is largely missed or else deliberately downplayed by some sources. An adherence to religious and societal ideals which drove policies that were way out of step with the ethics of the rest of the world. A following of a sort of manifest destiny, a belief of hakko ichiu, a philosophy of superiority with a destiny to rule the world. Which is what ultimately led to their fall since they could not competently strike a balance between power and responsibility in a modern-day world. Their values wouldn't allow for it. Consequently they became just another batch of bad guys of history that didn't play well with others who had to be beaten into civility.

 

 

[AppyPappy]

It was amazing how quickly Japan was able to expand and how quickly we put them on their heels. By the end of 1942, we knew Japan was going to lose the war. We didn’t know that in Europe until mid-1943 when we invaded Sicily.

[SunkenCiv]

Ultimately the only reason they attacked was because they were Japanese supremacists and racists. That's why they were in such a long, large war in China.

The false flag op that had netted them Manchuria a few years earlier had worked out very well. Its architect (and Tojo's role model and mentor) warned that further encroachment would result in a war of attrition with China that Japan couldn't win. Tojo threw that aside. The next false flag and new drive of conquest was carried out right when Chiang Kai-Shek could give them his undivided ****ing attention.

The British Navy that had survived the fights with the Japanese was largely pulled out; the UK garrison in Singapore surrendered to a numerically inferior Japanese force. The only reason that happened was, Britain had concerns a bit closer to home at that point.

The Japanese warlords who insisted on the attack were not deep thinkers.

And no, the US didn't bring on the war.

[SunkenCiv]

****ed right!

[SunkenCiv]

I had an uncle who, like so many others, wanted to enlist in the Navy, because that’s where the fight against the Japanese was seen to be. He’d heard from a friend that, those who asked for the Navy were put into the Army, and vice versa. So he asked for the Army, and got put into the Navy. Wound up stationed stateside throughout the war.

[SunkenCiv]

The Japanese really liked modern weapons, but they had an imperfect grasp of modern tactics and strategy. They had a relative cakewalk during their Pacific expansion, with just a lot of diplomatic incidents as a consequence, until they decided to attack a country geographically isolated from themselves (and from Germany for that matter), that also had an economy about five times larger than that of Japan. Even with the US going after Japanese shipping, the Japanese economy grew some during the war, but the US had an economy eight times larger by 1945.

Plus, we'd completely kicked their asses on land, sea, and air for over three years. :^) :^D

[AppyPappy]

It was amazing how quickly Japan acquired possessions. It was believed by many in Japan that they didn’t have to worry about US invading islands for 2 year due to the damage done to our navy. One of their fears was air attacks on the mainland coming from the Aleutians.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh, yeah, that was another good call, eh? The Aleutians were invaded here and there by the Japanese, but it didn't make strategic sense. And less than three months into the war Japan started, their capital got raided, and not from the Aleutians. "Don't bomb the Palace", which was part of strategic planning, was obeyed by Doolittle's Raiders. The Emperor was kept separated from the combatants (including politically, by Japanese politicians), undermining the warlords' political power.

Tojo and his associates were out of power by July 1944, and yet the Japanese fought on. 45 cities incinerated, and yet the Japanese fought on. It took not one, but two nukes to convince them to surrender, and even with that, there was a coup attempt by fanatics who wanted everyone to fight on. When Tojo and his henchmen were tried and executed, their remains were cremated and the ashes flown out over the Pacific and dumped to prevent shrines cropping up at their graves.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Ultimately the only reason they attacked was because they were Japanese supremacists and racists.

 

Which is at the core of hakko ichiu, everyone else was seen as a bunch of inferior nitwits, destined to be subjugated and ruled by them.

 

 

And no, the US didn't bring on the war.

 

Which is the correct answer, especially when FDR is blamed for an oil embargo on Japan. That's a leftist blood libel that's been making the rounds for at least the past 80 years. Metro-area newspapers at the time even parroted that in their editorial sections. Surprised and chagrined when it manages an appearance on the threads of FR. There was a provision in Japanese law where under a declared state of emergency the military could assume control of the nation, with the civilian government taking the backseat into an advisory role (if that). Post World War 1 the military stepped up their sabre rattling, looking for an "emergency", any emergency that would do. They got so carried away that plans were made for a full-on coup around the mid 1920s, dashed by the appearance of a very destructive hurricane, making organization impossible. When you study the details of the political dynamics at work in Japan in the early 20th century, you can arrive at a sobering conclusion that if a few things would have gone differently, World War 2 would have kicked off a lot sooner than it did.

 

The post-WW1 diplomatic policy tiffs with the US, as well with other outside powers, played into the domestic schemes of political exploitation by belligerents in the military and their civilian sycophants to gaslight and manipulate the public into heightened paranoia about the intents of outsiders (i.e. US, Europeans) in their hemisphere, into believing that a stronger role by the military was needed, and NOW, not later, to protect against foreign interlopers. Regardless of all that, we were always in their plans, as well as other 'outsiders', from a perspective of strategy as well the belief that we were inferior adversaries who must be shown who's boss and put in our place.

 

 

[SunkenCiv]

Also, my apologies, my “didn’t bring on the war” was just directed at something I’d said, to make sure no one misinterpreted it. What that was escapes me now, but I live on Failing Memory Lane. :^)

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Nah, I saw it as rhetorical, not specifically directed. As is what I wrote, hoping viewers would find it interesting and even research it themselves. It's all documented.

 

 

[SunkenCiv]

Nice job!