“The Aussies have a small scout group out there waiting for us, sir,” said Captain Archibald Hugh Douglas on the Saratoga, where Fletcher had planted his flag.
“I don’t think we can keep that appointment,” said Fletcher disconsolately. He had been thinking the situation over. They had reports from Catalinas that spotted four Jap carriers near the Rossell Island Group in the Lower Solomons. Four Jap carriers! That report had not been confirmed, but it was clear the enemy was moving in that direction with their main body. The report was erroneous, a mix-up where two separate planes had each reported a pair of carriers, Hara’s 5th Carrier Division. Yet once those reports reached Suva, they got stitched together by an eager clerk into four carriers.
Two carriers or four, it was intelligence that Fletcher could not ignore. He already knew where Halsey was, and that he was now turning south towards the lower Solomons with the intention of destroying the new enemy seaplane base at Tulagi.
“I think we have to turn,” said Fletcher. “We’re still two days from being any help to Port Moresby, but if I turn north by northeast now, I can move to effect a conjunction with Halsey, and between the two of us, we’ll have those four carriers in a vise.”
“Assuming they don’t have us for lunch first,” said Captain Douglas.
“I know,” said Fletcher. “It’s a risk. They’ll have interior lines and could turn one way or another and gang up on either side of our pincer operation here. But I’m gambling we can catch them before they catch us. Ever play chess Captain? The rule of thumb is to get those two Knights into action before the Bishops are developed. Well, we’re those two Knights. Halsey has the Bishops. So I’m heading right into the middle of the board where a good Knight belongs. Get the boys up on deck and come to 030, ahead full.”
Fletcher made his choice, and his move. With it, the history would now turn to a new page. It seemed there was going to be a battle in the Coral Sea after all, and he was sailing right into the thick of it.
Part VI
Combinations
“You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances. That’s what Chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one.”
Chapter 16
Fletcher had initially moved west around Noumea with the intention of fulfilling orders to strike at enemy bases throughout the Bismarck Archipelago, principally Gasmata and Rabaul. It was only a matter of circumstance that he then learned of Operation MO aimed at Port Moresby, and hastened to attempt an intervention. Had he been bolder, and risked a passage directly through the New Hebrides, he might have made a difference in that battle, but his swing well south of Noumea, where the Allies knew the Carrier Hiyo had laid her eggs by drooping off her entire air wing, was an example of the caution he exercised in battle.
Fletcher was a Black Shoe Admiral, schooled in surface warfare, and not one of the old Brown Shoe Admirals born and bred for carrier warfare. When Crace’s ANZAC squadron consisting of the heavy cruiser Australia, light cruiser Hobart and a destroyer was ordered to make a beeline for Port Moresby in an attempt to get at the invasion underway there, Fletcher thought he would ride in late to the rescue, until that fateful sighting report of four Japanese carriers that had been multiplied twice over.
In one sense, the sighting would end up being correct. The Black Shoe Admiral would end up tangling with all four Japanese fleet carriers before his sortie ended. When he turned northeast, it wasn’t long before planes off the Saratoga spotted the enemy right where they expected them to be to the northwest. With a predominance of SBD dive bombers in his task force, Fletcher wasted no time ordering a full strike. Yet the man on the other side was no slouch, Admiral Hara, the stalwart bullish figure the fleet came to call “King Kong.”
A big man, broad shouldered, and with a thick neck that simply became his head, Chuichi Hara looked every bit the part. He was out with 5th Carrier Division, which had been carrying the burden of most all fleet air support operations since Pearl Harbor. The damage to Kaga, the loss of Hiryu in that strange missile attack, and the refit scheduled for Akagi had left his division the only force ready to support southern offensive operations. When he first heard the news about Hiryu going down he was profoundly shocked—Hiryu struck by heavy rocket weapon just before planned launch… fires uncontrollable….
He found his eyes lingering on that message… heavy rocket weapon… What in the world could that have been? Yet even as he thought that, he knew something in some hidden recess of his mind that was shouting out a warning. Rocket weapon…
That night he saw them in his sleep, bright fiery tails trailing thin white smoke that caught the last fading remnants of the sun near dusk, and soon became gold, then crimson, as if some great unseen beast had clawed the sky. He remembered awakening in a cold sweat, his eyes wide, then realized it was only a dream, shaking it off and listening to the ship as it rode smoothly through the flat dark sea. Why did that report disturb him so? Was it merely the loss of that ship? No, it was something more, but he could not remember it.
He had successfully covered Operation R as Rabaul was taken without a hitch from the Australians. Gasmata and the rest of New Britain were occupied soon after, and then Lae and Salamaua fell easily. He had then been ordered to the Java Sea to support the landings there, but that terrible eruption had shaken that entire theater and driven even the gods of war to heel. Half the Java Sea was now blighted with ashfall, and passage west into the Indian Ocean was now a hazardous affair. The planned raid there had already been cancelled when the Rabaul operation was accelerated, so Hara had no regrets. He was pleased to be ordered east again into calmer waters, and glad to be supporting the move south into the Solomon Sea.
The Japanese carriers had also spotted the approach of the American task force to the southwest, and they were feverishly preparing to strike this unexpected enemy. Hara would order his dive bombers to lead the attack, three squadrons under Sakamoto, Ema and Hayashi. As they took longer to fuel and arm, he would hold his torpedo bombers for the second wave.
Dawn was just lightening the sky when the first planes roared off the long flight deck of Zuikaku, the Lucky Crane where Hara had decided to plan his flag. He had considered Shokaku, the lead ship in the class, but something about her Captain, Takaji Jojima, irritated him, and he was already too prone to grumble with a bad temper.
It was just our good luck that we saw those carriers, thought Hara. Now we must kill them, as they are undoubtedly here to try and interfere with the MO invasion force. But that will not happen—not on my watch—not with Sakamoto up there now. He always went out onto the weather deck to watch the planes form up, the drone and growl of their engines seeming like a swarm of angry bees to him. The formations circled in place until the last Shotai came up to join them. Then he saw the lead plane in the centermost group dip its wings. Sakamoto was saluting him as the dive bombers started on their way.
He looked at his watch… they would be at least an hour out to the suspected location of the enemy carriers, more than enough time to make his offering to the Thunder Gods looming like shadows in the line of clouds off to the north. His carriers had turned into the wind to launch, but now he would give the order to come about, closing the range on the enemy as the strike proceeded. He bowed to the distant storm as Zuikaku began her long graceful turn. Soon he saw Shokaku come abreast to keep formation, the Soaring Crane looking trim and fast that morning. He breathed deeply, smelling the rain behind him on that wind. It was a good day for battle.