Japan planned to use these conquered territories to establish a perimeter defense for its empire from which it expected to employ attritional tactics to defeat or exhaust any Allied counterattacks. To support these goals, during the first few months of 1942, besides Malaya, Japanese forces attacked and successfully took control of the Philippines, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Wake Island, New Britain, the Gilbert Islands and Guam, inflicting heavy losses on opposing Allied land, naval and air forces. In the words of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Combined Fleet's "Secret Order Number One", dated 1 November 1941, the goals of the initial Japanese campaigns in the impending war were to " British and American strength from the Netherlands Indies and the Philippines, to establish a policy of autonomous self-sufficiency and economic independence." fleet, seize territory rich in natural resources, and obtain strategic military bases to defend their far-flung empire. In launching this war, Japanese leaders sought to neutralize the U.S. and the British Empire, after Japanese forces attacked Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong as well as the U.S. Japanese advances in the Southwest Pacific from December 1941 to April 1942
More importantly, the damage to Shōkaku and the aircraft losses of Zuikaku prevented both ships from participating in the Battle of Midway in the following month. The battle marked the first time since the start of the war that a major Japanese advance had been turned back. Although the battle was a tactical victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk, it has been described as a strategic victory for the Allies. Because of the loss of carrier air cover, Inoue also recalled the Port Moresby invasion fleet. fleet carrier Lexington critically damaged and later scuttled, and the fleet carrier Yorktown lightly damaged.īoth sides having suffered heavy aircraft losses and carriers sunk or damaged, the two forces disengaged and retired from the area. On 8 May, both sides finally located and attacked the other's fleet carriers, with the Japanese fleet carrier Shōkaku damaged, the U.S. destroyer and damaged the fleet oiler Neosho. sank the Japanese light carrier Shōhō, and the Japanese sank a U.S. The next day, both fleets launched airstrikes against what they thought was the enemy fleet carriers, but both sides actually attacked other targets. On the evening of 6 May, the two carrier fleets closed to within 70 nmi (81 mi 130 km) but did not detect each other in the darkness. Alerted to the presence of enemy aircraft carriers, the Japanese fleet carriers advanced towards the Coral Sea to locate and destroy the Allied naval forces. On 3–4 May, Japanese forces successfully invaded and occupied Tulagi, although several supporting warships were sunk or damaged in a surprise attack by the U.S. Navy carrier task forces and a joint Australian-American cruiser force to oppose the offensive, under the overall command of U.S. learned of the Japanese plan through signals intelligence and sent two U.S. Two fleet carriers and a light carrier were assigned to provide air cover for the invasion forces, under the overall command of Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue. The plan, Operation Mo, involved several major units of Japan's Combined Fleet. To strengthen their defensive position in the South Pacific, the Japanese decided to invade and occupy Port Moresby (in New Guinea) and Tulagi (in the southeastern Solomon Islands).
Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the battle is historically significant as the first action in which the opposing fleets neither sighted nor fired upon one another, attacking over the horizon with aircraft carriers instead. The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia.
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