Battle of Coral Sea, Part 3
By David H. Lippman
May 2010

Continued from Part 2

The Battle of the Coral Sea, May 8, 1942. At the precise moment that Yorktown’s last planes pull out of the attack on Shokaku, the Japanese attack on the Americans begins. There is no truth to the story that the Japanese and American strike packages, heading on opposite courses, sight each other in passing, but the attacks are nearly simultaneous.

At 11 a.m., Lexington signals all fighters circling the American carriers the message, “Hey, Rube!” To American circus folk, this means a fight has broken out between the circus crew and the local residents. The Navy has adapted this message to let fighter pilots know it is time to draw in and prepare to defend the fleet. Up on Lexington’s bridge, Paul Stroop keeps the battle diary, writing in longhand in a ledger.

The two carriers change course to 125 degrees, and crank up their engines (General Electric geared turbines on Lexington and Parsons single-reduction geared turbines on Yorktown) to 25 and then 30 knots and start launching a relief CAP of nine Wildcat fighters. Five of them race immediately into the 90-plane attack force, two of them staying low to evade Zero fighter escorts and hit the incoming Kate torpedo-bombers. The other three claw up to 17,000 to try and reach the Val dive-bombers before they hit their pushover point. The other four are vectored out 15 miles, and miss the interception.

Fitch doesn’t have enough fighters, and his 23 SBD Dauntless dive-bombers in the air on search missions can’t double effectively as fighters. Four of them try anyway, charging into the Japanese attack force, the SBD radiomen-gunners blazing away desperately. They shoot down four Kate torpedo-bombers for an equal loss of SBDs, but neither the Wildcats nor the Dauntlesses seriously interfere with the Japanese attack. On Yorktown, Buckmaster stands on the bridge instead of inside the armored conning tower, to get a better view of the battle.

Lexington explodes in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

At 11:18, the Japanese swoop down from northeastward, down wind and down sun, amid a fresh 16- to 20-knot north of east trade wind. The sea is smooth, visibility high, the American ships gleaming in the sun, kicking up huge wakes from their high speed. The Japanese Kate torpedo-bombers, slinging some of the best “fish” in the world, attack on both bows of Lexington, firing their Type 91 torpedoes at half- to three-quarter mile ranges, from 50 to 200-foot altitudes. The Americans open fire with a wall of anti-aircraft guns, which spew black smoke across the sky. American guns rip open two incoming Kates, and the gunners see the Japanese airmen’s bodies hurtling through the sky. When the first torpedo appears off Lexington’s port bow, Sherman orders full right rudder — and Japanese torpedoes then appear on his starboard bow. Sherman orders his ship to sail parallel to the torpedo wakes, and his crewmen see as many as 11 race by, under, alongside, and forward.

Even so, Lexington cannot evade so many torpedoes. Her tactical diameter is a whopping 1,500 to 2,000 yards, while the smaller and more maneuverable destroyers can turn in 1,000 yards. At 11:20 a.m., the first Japanese torpedo hits her port side forward, followed by a second opposite the bridge. Up on the bridge, Stroop can feel the hits — he’s convinced Lexington takes at least four torpedoes. While Lexington copes with these hits, the Val dive-bombers push over from 17,000 feet and streak down to release point at 2,500 feet. Stroop watches the bombers roar down on him, and notes clinically that the Japanese keep dropping their bombs short. The Japanese are not making as steep a dive as they should.

One bomb goes off in a 5-inch ready ammunition box on Lexington’s port side main deck forward, while another smacks into the carrier’s immense smokestack structure. The hit on the port gun gallery kills the gun crews, burning them at their stations. The bomb continues into officers’ country a deck below, setting fire to the admiral’s living quarters, killing two of his stewards. Near-misses rupture plates and set off huge black plumes of water. To heighten the chaos, a near-miss jams the carrier’s siren while in operation, adding to the din. As the Japanese torpedo planes pull out of their attacks, they zoom close to Lexington, staring at the Americans. Stroop thinks that at least one aviator thumbs his nose at the Americans.

The Japanese also hammer the Yorktown, firing the first three of eight torpedoes on her port quarter at 11:18. Yorktown, slicing the water at 30 knots, maneuvers to avoid the fish, and is able to do so, due to her smaller turning circle and a Japanese failure to attack on both sides. Chief Red Maag takes cover in crews’ head just below the flight deck on the starboard side. Normally 40 feet over the water, the carrier heels so violently Maag thinks he can reach out and touch the ocean’s surface. “When the ship would make some wild turns it would heel way over and then pretty soon we were going the other way again,” says Yorktown crewmember Donald Blessum of Harvey, North Dakota. “Back and forth we went. Well, come to find out the skipper was an old destroyer sailor and I guess they practiced that a little bit and so he made a destroyer out of the Yorktown.”

The torpedoes score no hits. But at 11:24, the dive-bombers strike, and the carrier’s guns open up. The Japanese planes seem to be headed straight for Yorktown’s island structure. Buckmaster orders more hard maneuvers, now trying to go under the dive-bombers, forcing them to steepen their dives, making it harder for them to bomb accurately. Buckmaster’s theory works: Eight bombs splash into the sea near the carrier, shaking her in the water. Three near-misses on the starboard quarter send her leaping into the air and exposing all four propellers to the air.

But even the bombs that miss do damage. Fragments from one clip a flight deck catwalk near Marine Cpl. Peter Kikos’ .50-caliber machine-gun. The Minneapolis native stays at his gun. Another missed bomb sends fragments shredding into the wire mesh that Chicken Underwood evacuated under orders, hitting Paul Meyers. The other guys in the mesh leap out and scream for medics. Medics carry off Meyers in a stretcher, dying.

Moments later, Yorktown suffers her only hit, an 800-lb. bomb, possibly a converted 12-inch shell, that hits the flight deck 15 feet inboard of the island superstructure, crushing through the third deck’s Compartment C-301-L, past Repair Party No. 5, to the fourth deck, leaving holes 15 inches in diameter as it smacks through the steel. The resulting explosion rips a hole about 15 feet wide in the third deck, sending steel fragments flying and flame roaring about the ship, killing sailors. Fragments cut through electrical wires, which set them off sparking and frying.

The blast kills and injures members of Repair No. 5, mortally wounding Ricketts. His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part, “Despite his ebbing strength, Lt. Ricketts promptly opened the valve of a near-by fireplug, partially led out the fire house and directed a heavy stream of water into the fire before dropping dead beside the hose. His courageous action, which undoubtedly prevented the rapid spread of fire to serious proportions, and his unflinching devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.” Both he and Powers are members of the Annapolis Class of 1935.

Nearby, Bill Kowalczewski hears the blast, feels the smoke, and charges into the blasted compartment, equipped with gas mask and flashlight. There he finds his brother Victor’s body. “There wasn’t a mark on him,” Bill says later. “He must have been killed by the concussion.”

There is no time to mourn, even for a brother. Bill rejoins Repair Team No. 5, picks up Victor’s body, and drags it down to the mess hall, being used as a casualty station, leaves him there for the medics to cover, then runs back to Compartment C-301-L to get another wounded man from his party. There aren’t many. Steiniger and Hunt are dead. Raciopi is wounded. So is Sid Flum, who later says that the heat and dust of the blast feels “like somebody had hit me in the face with a big potato scraper or something. It was the feeling of something rough hitting you.” Flum doesn’t know it, but he and his uniform are on fire. Someone beats out the flames covering Flum’s clothes, and Flum passes out, unconscious for three days.

The blast is felt in the massive hangar deck and tiny compartments. Lt. Edward Kearney, the carrier’s junior doctor, is in main sickbay with Musician Frank Baldino, a saxophonist out of battle and a medical assistant in battle. When the two men feel the blast, Kearney snaps, “Okay, let’s go.”

Baldino is unable to move. “I looked at him and I was scared,” Baldino says later. “I’m telling you. I was shaking like a leaf. I wanted to go but I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t move.” Kearney looks into Baldino’s eyes, and sees his bandsman-medic is paralyzed with fear. Kearney goes to a cabinet, produces a bottle full of liquid, and pours Baldino a glass. “Drink this,” the doctor orders.

Baldino drinks the liquid. It’s Ten-High Bourbon. Fueled with liquid courage, Baldino follows Kearney out of the sickbay . . . through a passageway by the scullery . . . past the bakery . . . undog a jammed hatch . . . and into Compartment C-301-L. They find devastation, including the unconscious Flum.

Kearney and Baldino get straight to work, with Baldino holding the burned men by the ankle while Kearny puts in the IVs. Baldino breaks out his tannic acid and distilled water for burns, and his bundle of plywood splints for setting broken bones.

After that, Kearney and Baldino move on to the next compartment, and find Victor Fazzi of Cranston, Rhode Island, a friend of Baldino. “He was lying on his back, looking at me,” says Baldino later. “His eyes were still bright and kind of glistening. I said, ‘Hey, Doc, can we do something for my buddy, here?’” Kearny looks straight into Baldino’s eyes, and shakes his head.

The bomb kills and seriously injures 66 men, mostly by burns. Yorktown’s surgeon chafes at how his shipmates wear short-sleeved shirts and rolled-up trousers — which leaves skin opens to burns from the resulting fires. Capt. Elliott Buckmaster smoothly handles his carrier to avoid further hits, and Yorktown can continue flight operations despite the wound.

Bomb damage on USS Yorktown.

The Japanese start pulling out of their attacks, and by 11:45 a.m., the carrier struggle is over. Amazingly, despite the immense damage done, the attack is a poor job for the Japanese. Only three hits out of 33 bombs dropped, a miserable percentage. By comparison, in the Indian Ocean in April, the Soryu’s dive-bombers achieved 40 percent hits. The poor performance is attributed to the Fifth Carrier Division’s rookie status.

On the way back, the bombers face more Wildcat fighters and SBDs acting as fighters. The Japanese lose three more Kates and a Val to American guns, and three more Vals crash at sea, due to battle damage, their crews lost. Among the Vals shot down is that of Lt. Cdr. Kakuichi Takahashi, who led the dive-bombers of the first attack wave that hammered the American bases at Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese pilots report to Adm. Hara that they have sunk one “large” enemy carrier, which they identify as Saratoga. The Japanese believe that their submarine attack that damaged Saratoga earlier in the war sank the Lexington. They also report sinking a “medium” carrier, either Enterprise or Yorktown, and that they have left burning a battleship or cruiser. Neither side is doing well with their ship identification cards and battle reports. Japanese total aviation losses are 30 planes due to combat and 13 more operationally. The Americans have lost 43 planes from all causes.

At this moment, the Americans have won a considerable tactical and strategic victory. The Japanese invasion of Port Moresby has been blunted, and the temporary postponement will soon be made permanent. The Japanese have lost a light carrier, a destroyer, and several mine craft. One of their heavy carriers has been sent home for repairs, and the Americans have only lost a destroyer and an oiler, while two carriers have been damaged.

Concluded in Part 4.

David H. Lippman, an award-winning journalist and graduate of the New School for Social Research, has written many magazine articles about World War II. He maintains the World War II + 55 website and currently works as a public information officer for the city of Newark, N.J.

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