Evening star., 1942-06-13
CoroI Seq Score

Two facts stand out above all
others in the Navy's stirring and
heartening account Of the now his
toric battle of the Coral Sea: First,
airpoWer has demonstrated beyond
dispute its indiSpensability as a
dominant offensive arm of the fleet,
and. second, when account is taken
of latest figures on enemy losses at
Midway, a destructive and possibly
decisive blow has been dealt the
powerful japanese Navy.
Regrettable as is the loss Of our
great aircraft carrier, the Lexington,
the news is more than Offset by the
astounding toll of japanese carriers,
cruisers, destroyers and transports
sunk or damaged in the tWo-month-
long engagement. And, the better
than five -to-one score in our favor
in the Coral Sea area now is boil
stored by the revised report from
Midway that four japanese aircraft
carriers were sent to the bottom of
the Pacific in the recent American
victory there.
An extraordinary thing about the
Coral Sea battle is that, for the first
time in the history of sea warfare,
a major contest between fleets was
fought and won by airpower alone.
Our surface vessels never got within
sight or within gun range of enemy
ships-but our carriers loOSed SWarmS
Of torpedo planes, bombers and
fighters that carried the battle to
the enemy wherever they could find
him. And find him they did, al
though discovering so obscure
hideout as Tulagi Bay in the Solo
mons was no easy task. 1t was at
Tulagi that our reconnaissance
planes found a sizable section of
the Jap invasion fleet nestled Snugly
in harbor, and by the time our tor
pedo planes and dive bombers had
finished their job, dozen enemy
ships were sunk or beached-at a
total cost to us Of only three planes
In a March prelude to this May
action, Army and Navy planes had
sunk or damaged twenty Jap vessels
In the twin ports of Lac and Sala-
maua. in New Guinea. The main
engagement in the Coral Sea area
occurred during the final stages of
the battle, on May and 8, when
our carrier borne aircraft sank the
new Japanese aircraft carrier Ryu-
kaku and heavy cruiser and seri-
ouSly damaged second carrier the
Shokaku. Striking back desperately.
Jap planes sank one of our destroy
ers and a tanker and so wounded
the Lexington that she exploded
several hours later
Particularly gratifying are the
crippling blows struck in the Coral
Sea and Midway battles at Admiral
Yamamoto's carrier fleet. Japan
Is presumed to have entered the war
with from nine to eleven aircraft
carriers. OF these. one was lost and
one badly damaged and set afire in
the Coral Sea and four were reported
sunk off Midway, with possibly an
other damaged This means that six
or seven of Japan's carriers-the
bulk of the fleet-baSed aerial striking
power which cleared the way for her
southwark invaSiOn--are lost or out
of commission. In addition, three of
her battleshipS were damaged at
Midway
The japanese Navy thus has Suf-
fered losses so disastrous that it's
whole future strategy and course of
operations must be altered. Ger
tainly the threat to Hawaii and our
West Coast. so real only few weeks
ago. has been leSSened, if not COM
pletely eraSed-at least for the pre-
dictable future To say that Pearl
Harbor has been avenged is to put
1t mildly. In the light of the changed
situation, it may we'll be wondered
how Yamamoto, who permitted him
self to be decorated by the Emperor
for the glorious victory" of the Coral
Sea. can hope to save face or to
whip up much enthusiasm in Toxic
over an achievement so relatively
unimportant as the landing of troops
: on remote and rocky Attu and KiSka
isles. at the western tip of the
AleutlanS.