Battle of the Coral Sea

[TarJak]

Anniversary this week. Found this interesting video remembering the battle: http://media.smh.com.au/national/national-news/remembering-the-coral-sea-war-1404221.html?&exc_from=strap

[KL-alfman]

thanks for sharing this interesting coverage!
salute to all the Veterans :salute:

[Schroeder]

Interesting. Maybe a bit too unspecific but it should be enough to spark some interest in some people.

[Admiral8Q]

Nice!:rock:

Ozziland was on their agenda to invade, but it was stopped. That's what all us culturally linked friends we're best at in the ww2 I guess. :yep::smug:

[Jimbuna]

Some people believe the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first turning point in the war against Japan.....it did occur before Midway after all.

[tater]

Some people believe the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first turning point in the war against Japan.....it did occur before Midway after all.

Looking for a single "turning point" is artificial, IMO.

If you look for a single engagement over a short time period, it's clearly Midway. The IJN could never recover from Midway. That said, the US could have lost Midway and it would have had little effect on the war, frankly.

A better argument can be made that the turning point was AFTER Midway at Guadalcanal. While the Coral Sea and Midway were both failed last-gasps at Japanese expansion, Guadalcanal was the beginning of serious contraction. In addition, the loses sustained there were all alone unrecoverable (trained pilots, naval units, etc).

Those are the more traditional notions. My personal point to place the turning point of the war in the PTO?

Pearl Harbor.

The idiotic surprise attack plan—even had it happened moments AFTER a declaration of war as intended—virtually guaranteed a US population out for the abject surrender or destruction of Japan. Since the Japanese war plan required a short war, then a negotiated peace, the decision to guarantee that negotiation would be off the US table by a sneak attack ended any chance of Japanese victory.

[Raptor1]

The Coral Sea can very well be compared to the Battle of Moscow or Operation Crusader, not usually considered the turning points of their theaters, but the first decisive reversals.

[tater]

The Coral Sea is interesting. It's right at the point where Jap pre-war planning ends, and they start to extemporize.

The initial expansion involved some extemporaneous planning as situations changed during that fluid period, but none the less it was mostly to plan. Once they started into real terra incognito, from a planning standpoint, they really started to show a lack of understanding, frankly. The initial expansion worked so well largely because they were "the firstest with the mostest." As soon as they started having to consider multiple operations over their now wide empire they went downhill fast. Coral Sea really showed how poorly they understood the benefits of the Kido Butai, along with their penchant for planning that constantly divided forces that should have been concentrated.