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http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/may42/f07may42.htm

General asks holdouts to surrender
Thursday, May 7, 1942 www.onwar.com

General Wainwright broadcasting after his surrender [photo at link]

In the Philippines... General Wainwright broadcasts the news of the American surrender at Corregidor from Japanese custody. He invites the remainder of the American forces in the Philippines to surrender. Despite the American surrender, the opposition faced by Japanese forces has been effective in disrupting their plans. General Homma was allocated 50 days to take the Philippines, the actual conquest took five months. The continuing resistance of the Filipino forces has prevented the release of his troops for other campaigns.
In the Coral Sea... American Admiral Fletcher sends Task Force 44 to attack Japanese troop transports bound for Port Moresby. The Japanese retaliate with attacks from land based aircraft. The Japanese also sight the American tanker Neosho and the Sims, they send aircraft after the ships and the Neosho is sunk. The Americans find Japanese Admiral Goto’s close support force and they proceed to sink the carrier Shoho. Meanwhile, Japanese Admiral Takagi sends planes out in an attempt to find the American fleet. Twenty-one of the Japanese planes are lost without engaging the enemy, including a small group which attempt to land on the American aircraft carrier Yorktown. The Japanese troop transports return to Rabaul to await the outcome of the battle.

In Madagascar... The Vichy commanders at Diego Suarez surrender to the British Admiral Syfret and General Sturges.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/coralsea/cs-3.htm

Battle of the Coral Sea, 7-8 May 1942
The Events of 7 May 1942

The first day of the carrier battle of Coral Sea, 7 May 1942, saw the Americans searching for carriers they knew were present and the Japanese looking for ones they feared might be in the area. The opposing commanders, U.S. Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher and Japanese Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi and Rear Admiral Tadaichi Hara, endeavored to “get in the first blow”, a presumed prerequisite to victory (and to survival) in a battle between heavily-armed and lightly-protected aircraft carriers. However, both sides suffered from inadequate work by their scouts and launched massive air strikes against greatly inferior secondary targets, which were duly sunk, leaving the most important enemy forces unhit.

Japanese scouting planes spotted the U.S. oiler Neosho (AO-23) and her escort, the destroyer USS Sims (DD-409), before 8AM, in a southerly position well away from Admiral Fletcher’s carriers. Reported as a “carrier and a cruiser”, these two ships received two high-level bombing attacks during the morning that, as would become typical of such tactics, missed. However, about noon a large force of dive bombers appeared. As was normal for that type of attack, these did not miss. Sims sank with very heavy casualties and Neosho was reduced to a drifting wreck whose survivors were not rescued for days.

Meanwhile, a scout plane from USS Yorktown (CV-5) found the Japanese Covering Group, the light carrier Shoho and four heavy cruisers, which faulty message coding transformed into “two carriers and four heavy cruisers”. Yorktown and USS Lexington (CV-2) sent out a huge strike: fifty-three scout-bombers, twenty-two torpedo planes and eighteen fighters. In well-delivered attacks before noon, these simply overwhelmed the Shoho, which received so many bomb and torpedo hits that she sank in minutes. Her passing was marked by some of the War’s most dramatic photography.

Adding to the confusion, if not to the score, Japanese land-based torpedo planes and bombers struck an advanced force of Australian and U.S. Navy cruisers, far to the west of Admiral Fletcher’s carriers. Skillful ship-handling prevented any damage. Australia-based U.S. Army B-17s also arrived and dropped their bombs, fortunately without hitting anything.

All this had one beneficial effect: the Japanese ordered their Port Moresby invasion force to turn back to await developments. Late in the day, they also sent out nearly thirty carrier planes to search for Fletcher’s ships. Most of these were shot down or lost in night landing attempts, significantly reducing Japanese striking power. The opposing carrier forces, quite close together by the standards of air warfare, prepared to resume battle in the morning.

This page features views of the Japanese aircraft carrier Shoho under attack on 7 May 1942. They are presented in approximately the order in which they were taken.

Some things are still the same, 70 years later.

http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1942&_f=md056179

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt
MAY 7, 1942

No aid is being given to young people going to college or to high school. The high school aid is less necessary at this time, since more and more people are now employed and can give their children the little that is needed to make a high school education possible. To have college aid given up, however, seems to me rather tragic.

I had hoped that this part of NYA was just the beginning of a real democratization of education in this country. There is no reason why good students who should become professional people should be denied the opportunity to enter these fields simply because they can not afford to go to college. They will amply repay the country for their education.

Young people who have received NYA assistance in college have nearly always stood among the first ten of their class. All over the country the vast majority of college presidents are distressed at having this opportunity for education and usefulness taken away from young people just because they cannot pay for it. It is a short-sighted move and a present economy which will cost us dear in the future.