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The Battle of the Coral Sea (May 1942)
After Japan's devastating surprise attack on the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941, the U.S.S. Neosho was suddenly the navy's only operational tanker in the mid-Pacific. During the next few months, the Neosho criss-crossed the ocean while refueling task forces and carrying vital diesel and aviation fuel to islands throughout the Pacific.
In late April 1942, the Neosho was operating with the carrier Yorktown's fleet near Noumea, New Caledonia in the southwestern Pacific. The Japanese forces, which had invaded New Guinea a short while earlier, were planning to complete their conquest of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. If successful, Japan would effectively cut off supplies to Australia and New Zealand, possibly forcing those two countries out of the war. To counter this threat, Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered the American carriers Yorktown and Lexington to thwart the Japanese.
The Battle of the Coral Sea lasted five days with both sides suffering moderate losses. Certainly the most prominent American loss was the carrier U.S.S. Lexington, but perhaps the most dramatic story of the battle involved the tanker, U.S.S. Neosho and its stalwart escort, the destroyer U.S.S. Sims.
This section describes the events of that battle.
Next Page: Battle of the Coral Sea: Summary
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