Battle of Coral Sea (May 4th-8th)
The Battle of Coral Sea, From 4th May to 8th May was a major battle between America and Japan where the American and Japanese clased on the coral sea and was the first carrier battle in history where carriers fight each other without surface ships firing at each other. Operation MO the invasion of Port Moresby and tp bomb northern Australia which was a plan to cut off Australia from the allies because the Japanese don't have the time and resources to invade Australia. Japanese Navy Admiral Yamamoto accept to agree to give its one carrier task force to proceed with the operation but wanted it as quickly after the operation is over. Tulagi was taken by the Japanese on May 3rd while it was the supported by Japanese carrier force. During the operation, the Americans have only one carrier which was USS Yorktown the other carriers USS the hornet, and USS enterprise was coming back from Doolittle's raid and were unavailable. USS Saratoga was torpedoed and was in repair for 6 months which left the only carrier available which is USS Lexington which was old but still reliable. On the other hand, the Japanese invasion convoy was escorted and supported by IJN Shoho which was a light carrier but the main force was the carrier task force which consisted of IJN Shokaku and Zuikaku which together they have 121 aircraft.
On 2-3rd may when the USS Yorktown was trying to rendezvous with Lexington the Lexington was running low on fuel so it refueled in oil tanker Neosho and so Yorktown got a report that the Japanese launch operation MO so the ship went lonely because the Tulagi invasion force was arriving in Tulagi.
On May 4th Yorktown launched an attack on Tulagi by air which the Japanese were completely caught by surprise the Japanese lost 1 destroyer and 1 minesweeper in the attack and 200+ casualties. while the Japanese task force was coming it was delayed by bad weathers for 2 days which was very crucial because they have near Solomon islands if they haven't been delayed and could have launched a counter-attack on Yorktown and the Japanese force was in the middle of refueling when they received which makes things more complicated.
On May 6th one Japanese flying boat spotted TF-17 but again the Japanese task force was in the middle of refueling when he received the report after the refueling he quickly turn south to pursue the American but it was getting darker so he calls off the pursuit and moves north.
On May 7th two Japanese scout planes mistakenly believe the oil tanker Neosho and USS sims as carrier and destroyer which the Japanese launch a massive strike consisted of 78 planes but at 0820 the Japanese got a sighting of another carrier but the Japanese doesn't breaked radio silence and so the planes after 2 hours of search to find any valuable targets the Japanese attacked the oil tanker Neosho and USS sims the Americans had a heavy loss of life. the American scout mistakenly sent a report to the task force that he sighted two carriers and 4 cruisers instead of 2 cruisers and 2 destroyers but the Americans were much luckier because one carrier was present which is the light carrier shoho which was sunk with heavy loss of life and was the first Japanese carrier to be sunk.
The Japanese launched a search and destroy mission with their best pilots to hunt down the American task force but fortunately for the Americans, they were under cloud cover which the Japanese planes were ambushed by Americans where 9 planes were shot down of the 27 aircraft.
On 8th May the Americans launched an all-out search for the Japanese carriers when On 08:20 the Japanese were spotted the Americans launched an airstrike of 76 planes to attack the Japanese Task Force. On the other hand, the Japanese also launch a search for the American carriers and spotted the Americans at 08:22 the Japanese launch a strike of 69 planes. After the attack Shokaku was damaged and the deck and flight deck were on fire. After the attack Shokaku departed from the area. On the Japanese attacked 14 Torpedo bombers selected Lexington and 4 selected Yorktown and the 33 dive bombers 19 selected Lexington and 14 went for Yorktown.
But there was trouble in Lexington there were many explosions and fire spread out onboard and then it was concluded that she can't be saved. After the crew being saved the carrier was scuttled. she was sunk with 35 planes onboard. But the Americans were forced to leave because the battle already cost the Americans one carrier of its pacific task force. On the Japanese hand, Zuikaku was left with only 39 aircraft and because of this, she was not capable of supporting the convoy so she disengaged and the operation MO was over.
The casualties were as follows:- The Americans lost 1 carrier, 1 oil tanker, and one destroyer and one carrier, damaged total tonnage lost 62,600 and 66 planes - 35 aircrew and 543 men killed. The Japanese lost one light carrier, 1 destroyer, 3 minesweepers, 1 fleet carrier damaged, 1 small warship damaged, and 1 transport damage, total tonnage lost 13,900 and 77 planes - 90 crew killed and 1,074 killed. The allies claimed strategic victory because they stopped the first Japanese offensive in the pacific and prevented the landings on Port Moresby which the Japanese tried to take by land which failed, On the Japanese hand they claimed a tactical victory because they lost less tonnage than the allies.
Thanks for reading the article That's it for today's article it's the battle of coral sea article on the Pacific front a new article will come this time battle of midway. You can support us by donating on Patreon:- https://www.patreon.com/historywithirfan and Follow us on Instagram:- https://www.instagram.com/angloowarrior/ and join us on our discord:-https://discord.io/historywithirfan
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