Thank you for posting. I’ve seen both movies, so I could visualize the descriptions.
Bkmk
Good reminder.
We were very lucky.
I’m not one who thinks breaking the code made victory automatic. We knew their general direction and their target. That meant they were in an area of a gazillion square miles.
We got some really good breaks like radio failures on their float planes, timing of our uncoordinated torpedo attacks that pulled their CAP to the surface, Nagumo becoming flustered and ordering rearming when he could have hit us with HE ordinance (our carriers had wooden decks).
I’ve read the naval academy uses the most sophisticated technology and fights the battle over as a war game every year. That we have never pulled such a one sided victory in any scenario since WW2.
Commanded Task Force 16, centered on USS Enterprise and USS Hornet. He was a destroyer man, commander of the escort force but elevated to overall command by circumstance (ADM Halsey had shingles). Some FReepers may have served aboard one of his namesake SPRUANCE-class destroyers.
Commander of Task Force 17, centered on USS Yorktown. Yorktown was badly damaged at the Coral Sea ... yard men at Pearl Harbor fixed her up in record time to fight at Midway. The japs (thought they) sank her four times:
1) By aerial bombardment at Coral Sea.
2) By aerial bombardment at Midway. The crew got her back in the fight.
3) By aerial bombardment at Midway (again). The crew kept her from sinking; she was taken under tow by USS Hammond back to Pearl.
4) By submarine torpedo. The japs got both Yorktown and Hammond.
As opposed to June 1944, the allies were back on their heels in Spring 1942.
1941 USN bloodied at Pearl Harbor. Wake and Guam fall.
1942. U-boats still threaten to starve the UK.
Rommel trouncing around North Africa.
Russia is near collapse.
IJN victorious across the Pacific as it runs the Royal Navy out of the Indian Ocean, and the Dutch Navy, Australian Navy and USN from the Java Sea.
Philippines fall.
Japs attack Darwin.
With the Lexington sunk and Yorktown damaged, the Battle of the Coral Sea is a strategic success and tactical defeat for the USN.
Are they underwater by now what with the climate crisis and all? /S
The battle damage to Shōkaku and the aircraft losses of Zuikaku at the Battle of the Coral Sea prevented both ships from participating in the Battle of Midway the following month.
If the air crew of the Shokaku transferred to the Zuikaku and the ship sailed with the Kido Butai, the outcome might have been different.
80 years ago today my dad was helping to liberating Rome.