There Were the Japs!

The details of two U.S. victories--the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 4 to 8, and the Battle of Midway, June 3 to 7 threw much light on the current balance of gain & loss in the Pacific. Tales of U.S. skill, heroism and success also provided the first clear look at naval warfare, 1942 style:

Coral Sea. In the harbor of Tulagi, in the Solomon Islands, the Jap ships lay like dozing ducks when Lieut. Commander Joseph Taylor, of Danville, Ill., saw them through the early-morning clouds. Over his inter-plane radio he called to the leader of a companion squadron: "Bill, you hit 'em high and I'll hit 'em low!"

Dive-bombers dipped, torpedo-planes flew low and level at the massed Jap cruisers, destroyers, troop transports, auxiliaries. The attacking pilots swore and yelled into their phones in excitement. Some of their targets sank at anchor; others, aflame, died on the harbor beaches. From three attacks that day, every U.S. plane returned to the mother carriers--the Lexington and another, unnamed--waiting 100 miles south of Tulagi with a covering force of cruisers and destroyers. _ Two mornings later, scout-bombers sighted a Japanese carrier-cruiser force, about 180 miles north of the U.S. force. Attacking U.S. pilots soon saw a standard Japanese naval pattern: a big carrier (the new, 50-plane Ryukaku) steaming astern of two cruisers. The U.S. planes were still ten miles away when the cruisers' guns spat red and yellow flame. At four miles, the enemy anti-aircraft fire was thick and fierce. But the planes ignored the cruisers and flew on toward the carrier.

The Ryukaku swerved into a frantic, leftward circle to dodge the U.S. bombs. The maneuver failed. So did the efforts of the cruisers, firing shells into the water ahead of low-flying torpedo-planes, hoping they would fly into the geysers. Bombs ripped into the Ryukaku, mantling her decks in smoke and flame. A gun mount soared lazily upward, curved overside into the sea. Then the torpedoes struck home, squarely amidships. Later the Navy said that at least 15 bombs and ten torpedoes hit the Jap ship. The Ryukaku had completed her third circle when she sank, with most of her planes still aboard. Aboard the Lexington, radio receivers and loudspeakers caught the happy voice of Lieut. Commander Robert Dixon, leading a bomber squadron: "Scratch one flattop, scratch one flat-top!"

That night (as they later learned) the Japanese and U.S. forces passed within 30 miles of each other. Next morning U.S. scouts spotted the Japs in real force: three carriers, with cruisers and destroyers in the usual triangular formations. Wisely the U.S. cruisers and destroyers again stayed with their carriers. Not once during the battle did the U.S. and Jap warships get a shot at each other. Off went the planes, into history's first carrier-v.-carrier combat.

The U.S. planes apparently struck first. Their bombs and torpedoes left the 14,000-ton, 45-plane Syokaku flaming and listing so badly that the U.S. pilots doubted her survival (the Navy claimed only that she was severely damaged). When she was hit, the Syokaku's flight decks were bare; her planes were attacking the Lexington.

Against the Lexington and her sister carrier (which was probably damaged, but survived) came 108 Japanese planes. Forty were shot down. The Lexington dodged nine torpedoes, could not dodge two others. Three bombs also hit her. Nevertheless her crew took aboard most of her planes, had three fires under control and another nearly out when an internal explosion (apparently of escaping gasoline fumes) rent the Lexington. At 5:07 p.m., her commander, Captain Frederick Carl Sherman (since promoted to Rear Admiral), gave the sailor's saddest order:

"Abandon ship!" Before they slid overside into the sea, to be picked up by destroyers and cruisers, all the men lined their shoes in orderly rows on the flight deck. As Captain Sherman followed the last of his crew overboard, another explosion shook the ship. A little later, lest she fall into Jap hands or endanger other ships, a U.S. destroyer torpedoed the Lexington's flaming hulk. "That," said Admiral Sherman, "was the end of the Lexington."

Midway. On the afternoon of June 3, Navy patrol planes sighted a Japanese fleet, in two forces, some 600 miles west of Midway: a striking force of four carriers, three battleships, many cruisers and destroyers; a supporting force of one carrier, several cruisers and destroyers, troop transportsQ+n all, about 30 Jap ships.

From Midway Lieut. Colonel Walter C. Sweeney Jr. led three Flying Fortresses to the attack. Clouds compelled his crews to fly fairly low (at about 7,000 feet). The accuracy of the Japs' anti-aircraft fire surprised the U.S. pilots and bounced their planes around, but none was brought down. In this first attack, they reported hits on one cruiser, a transport, possibly a second cruiser and a battleship.

In the night, the Japanese maneuvered into assault formations. Cruisers and destroyers led the fleet. Then came three of the carriers, with escorting vessels. About 150 miles behind trailed three battleships, ready to finish off Midway after the carrier planes had attacked. Well behind the battleships were the transports, with their protecting coveys. One of the carriers, also escorted, had sneaked off on its own.

Next morning, Colonel Sweeney's bombers were in the air, headed for what they thought was the main Japanese fleet, when Navy patrols spotted the advance Japanese forces only 125 miles west of Midway. The Japs were then hit with everything Midway could throw at them. Marine Corps dive-bombers struck the leading cruisers and destroyers. Colonel Sweeney's heavy bombers went for the carriers, left one blazing. Four converted bombers, the first Army torpedo-planes ever recorded in action, hit the other carriers. Cried one of the pilots, "Boy, if Mother could see me now! Wow!" Two of the four went down after they had fired their torpedoes; the others limped home to Midway. The Navy had some land-based bombers and torpedo-planes on Midway, and these also joined the battle.

This concentration of Midway's air strength was decisive. It dazed the Japs before they were well started. It compelled them to concentrate their planes for their fleet's own defense, after a single attack on Midway.

At noon, bombers and torpedo-planes from U.S. carriers went into battle. Said a naval flyer: "Ten minutes later the three carriers were blazing from stem to stern." At about the same time, the Army bombers also resumed the attack, after refueling on Midway's undamaged airfield.

At 1:30 p.m., planes from the fourth, so far unsighted, Japanese carrier attacked a U.S. carrier. Said a torpedo-plane pilot who saw U.S. fighters intercept the Japs: "It looked like the sky over there was covered by a curtain of smoke streamers--a curtain of Japanese going down in flames." Only six or seven Jap bombers got close enough to aim their missiles at the carrier; all were shot down by antiaircraft fire.

Two hours later, Japanese torpedo-planes attacked the same carrier. Fighters on the flight deck, just in to refuel, took off with nearly empty tanks, flew through their own fire, beat off the attackers.

How badly the U.S. carrier was hit, the Navy did not say. But its planes found and attacked the fourth Japanese carrier that evening and again the next morning (indicating that the U.S. carrier was still afloat and fighting). The U.S. pilots were sure that this Jap carrier, like the three others, never reached port.

The destruction of the Japanese carriers won the Battle of Midway. Battered back on the defensive, the Jap fleet scurried homeward. As in the Coral Sea, no Jap surface ship had come within sight or range of a U.S. surface ship. Long-range Army bombers continued the hammering pursuit for three days.

On the last day, the Army had one of its few important losses. East of Wake Island, a Flying Fortress went down at sea. With it went one of the Army Air Force's best commanders, 54-year-old Major General Clarence L. Tinker. With his yellow gloves, swagger stick and Osage Indian blood (one-eighth), General Tinker was a famed Air Force character. He could well remember the time, not very long ago, when the sea was reserved for warships and a few naval planes, and Army bombers were encouraged to keep away from the Navy's pond.

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