May 4-8, 1942: Battle of Coral Sea

The week of May 4th through the 8th marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Coral Sea. Aircrews from our 19th BG participated in the battle, having been resupplied with two additional squadrons since the group’s devastating losses in the Philippines on December 7, 1941. During the battle, 19 BG crews raided Japanese transportation and communication targets, as well as ground forces attempting to invade Papua New Guinea. The map shows the Allies in red defending against the Japanese attack forces in blue. There’s a bit of Australia on the lower left corner of the map. While not a decisive military victory for either side, as both sides each lost carriers (with the middle image an example of a Japanese carrier taking hit), the outcome ultimately prevented the Japanese military from invading Australia and cutting off its communication with the Allies. The Aussies still commemorate this event. In many ways, this was a symbolic victory – similar to the Doolittle Raid a couple weeks earlier – in that it was the first true check to the abundant advances Japanese forces had made up to that point in the war, stretching back to the bombing of Pearl Harbor five months prior. In fact, Japanese military leaders had successfully invaded two of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands before these setbacks (as you can see in the NYT headline then), only to eventually lose them as well. Some historians consider the results from the Battle of Coral Sea to be the beginning of a turning point in the Pacific, particularly in the following months as U.S. forces claimed military victories in the Battles of Midway and Guadalcanal.