Battle of Coral Sea, Part 4
By David H. Lippman
May 2010

Continued from Part 3

In the Coral Sea the shooting has stopped, but the battle is far from over. As the Japanese planes form up and head home, Lexington lies listing seven degrees to starboard, three boiler rooms partially flooded. Her plane elevators are inoperative and three fires burn below. Yet incredibly, the carrier’s crew works to ready Lexington to recover her aircraft. The black gang in the engine room (a term for all engine and fire room personnel that dates back to coal-burning days) gets Lexington on an even keel by shifting oil ballast. Firefighters battle blazes, and discover that the peacetime wood and fabric furniture in the admiral’s cabin burns too easily for wartime conditions. Paint all over the ship is oil-based, which sets bulkheads ablaze. The firefighters themselves find that their hoses and nozzles are inadequate — they should send out fog rather than solid water.

Yet American determination keeps Lexington in the game. Despite two bombs and four torpedoes, she cracks on at 24 knots, recovering aircraft. After an hour, the carrier seems to be heading for Brisbane and safety.

Meanwhile, Yorktown is recovering her planes and repairing her damage. Bomber pilot W.F. Christie and his bombardier Lynn Forshee enter the landing circle and come aboard. Both are puzzled to see so many men with white, taut faces. The plane taxis to the forward elevator and is lowered into the hangar deck. When Forshee climbs out, he comes upon a pile of bodies, “stacked like cordwood.” He goes back topside and has a frightening view of the blazing Lexington. There’s more bad news for Forshee — his pal Johnny Kasselman hasn’t made it back. Another rear-seater gives Forshee the word: Kasselman shot down two Zeroes, but his plane was in turn shot down, and went in burning.

Forshee goes to the only place he can find privacy, his bunk, cries for his friend, and then volunteers for a combat air patrol flight, just to take his mind and body away from the loss.

At 12: 47, Cdr. H.R. Pop Healy, Lexington’s damage control officer, says to the skipper, Capt. Ted Sherman, “We’ve got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out, and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you keep ’em on the starboard side.”

Lexington listing badly in the Coral Sea.

Just as Healy finishes the sentence, an immense internal explosion racks Lexington. Someone has left a motor generator running, and gasoline vapors released by a torpedo hit are set off by that generator. More fires begin and a major detonation occurs at 2:45. The explosions rip open Damage Control Central, killing and wounding sailors charged with saving the ship, including Cdr. Healy. Incredibly, the ship is still doing 25 knots and recovering aircraft. The last one touches down at 2:14 p.m.

But another aviator is not making it home, Lt. Cdr. William B. Ault, commander of the Lexington’s air group, is struggling home wounded, asking for directions. Lexington tries to help, but she is about to have a bigger problem.

At 2:45, another major internal explosion blasts the Lexington’s fire and engine rooms, and Sherman has to ask his escort ships for firefighting help and halt flight operations. Remaining airborne planes are told to land on Yorktown, and destroyer Morris steams up to Lexington, passing fire hoses. But they do little good.

Sherman reports later, “By this time the fire was beyond control. Additional explosions were occurring; it was reported that the warheads on the hangar deck had been at a temperature of 140 degrees; ready bomb storage was in the vicinity of the fire and I considered there was danger of the ship blowing up at any minute. I had previously directed sick and wounded to be disembarked in our whaleboats and excess squadron personnel had gone on lines to the destroyer alongside.”

Up above, William Ault is still trying to come home. At 2:49 he reports having gas for only 20 minutes. Yorktown, taking over, tells Ault he is not on radar. At 2:52, Yorktown tells Ault to head for the nearest land. Ault answers that the “nearest land is 200 miles away.” He doesn’t have the gas. Yorktown radios back at 2:52, “You are on your own. Good luck.” Ault answers at 2:54, “Please relay to Lexington. We got one 1,000-pound bomb hit on a flat top. Am changing course to the north. Let me know if you pick me up.” Ault is never heard from again.

With the engine rooms in danger and communications out, Lexington’s black gang is ordered to secure engines and boilers at 4 p.m. The engine men lift the steam safety valves and troop topside. Lexington slows to a halt at 4:30. Up above, crewmen prepare to abandon ship. In sick bay at 4:52 p.m., Cdr. A.J. White, the senior surgeon, orders his doctors and medics to evacuate wounded sailors to Captain Sherman’s cabin prior to moving them to escort ships. There the doctors and medics tend the men, covering burns with tannic acid before lowering more than 150 wounded men in basket stretchers to whaleboats. But the fires can’t be stopped — on the hangar deck, they’re getting worse, and ammunition is cooking off. Stroop hears the sound of a freight train rumbling up the flight deck, but it’s actually a rushing wall of flame erupting around the perimeter of the aft elevator.

At 5:07 p.m., Rear Adm. Fitch calls down from his flag bridge to Sherman and says, “Well, Ted, let’s get the men off.” Sadly, Sherman takes the hint and orders his crew to abandon the Lexington. For many Lexington sailors, it is indeed losing a home — the carrier’s crew consists mostly of long-service men, pre-war enlistees, who have served on the ship for their entire careers, in a Navy that could not afford in peacetime to rotate crewmen between ships.

The Lexington’s crew carefully and methodically abandons ship. In ship offices, sailors file documents and clean their desks. Radiomen dust off their instruments. Sailors line up on the flight deck to climb down lifelines, placing their shoes in an orderly line on the deck. Some enterprising sailors raid the ship’s stores and bring up all the remaining ice cream, and the crewmen consume it while awaiting their turn. Nobody who goes over the side drowns; even Sherman’s dog “Wags” is saved.

Meanwhile, at 6 p.m., the Japanese do their calculations. With Shokaku heading home and Task Force 17 presumably sunk, Inouye orders his ships to withdraw, and postpones the Port Moresby invasion to July 3. The casualty bill is fierce for the Japanese: Takahashi, dependable and phlegmatic, cannot be easily replaced. Neither can the 40 planes lost during the day, nor the 40 aviators lost. The Japanese no longer have enough aviators to fully man their six fleet carriers. Shokaku’s damage will keep her out of the next battle, as will Zuikaku’s lack of pilots. If the Americans cannot afford to trade Yamamoto carrier for carrier at this point, the Japanese cannot trade the Americans aviator for aviator. The Japanese are losing aviators faster than they can replace them.

Fitch remains up on Lexington’s bridge with his staff as long as possible, then he, Stroop, and the flag staff head port side, forward, to climb down the lifelines. Stroop rips out the longhand pages of his war diary from their ledger, folds them up in a square, and stuffs them in his pocket, making life easier for historians later.

He strides across the flight deck, feeling its heat, realizing the ship will sink soon. At portside forward, Fitch and Stroop find large mooring lines hanging down, making it easy for the senior staff to haul themselves down to the water. Fitch’s Marine orderly walks across the flight deck in absolutely correct position, one step to the left and one to the rear, carrying Fitch’s coat over his arm. Fitch is the only officer who arrives on a rescue ship with a jacket. The Marine also carries, more importantly, all of the dispatches handed to the admiral during the battle. Fitch and his staff find lines but no boats available. Stroop tries sending semaphore messages to the nearest cruiser, Minneapolis, “Send a boat for the admiral,” and the cruiser does, sending a motor launch right to the spot.

The admiral’s orderly urges that Fitch go first, but Fitch is determined to be last, and orders his Marine aide down. Nobody argues over protocol. Stroop is a former Annapolis rope-climber, so he times his descent to arrive at the bottom of the line just as the launch arrives. But Lt. Bowen, the communications officer, behind Stroop on the line, is heavier and longer, and can’t hang on. He says, “Pardon me, sir, while I pass you.” Bowen drops off the line and into the water. Fitch and his orderly continue to argue about who shall get in the water first until the launch gets under the line, and both step onto the launch dry-shod, as does Stroop.

The launch motors alongside the carrier, picking up sailors still in the water, then heads for Minneapolis. As Fitch and his team reach the cruiser’s bridge, there is a tremendous explosion, and everyone turns to watch Lexington’s No. 2 elevator fly out of the ship, followed by a sheet of flame that rises as high as the mast of the ship, and the whole bridge area erupts in flames, an incredible silhouette in the night sky. Realizing that waiting longer to abandon ship would have only led to more casualties, Fitch feels a sense of relief.

Meanwhile, Sherman and his XO, Cdr. M.T. Seligman make that last grim inspection to ensure that nobody has been left behind. They have to dodge flying debris as explosions continue to wrack the ship. Finally, preceded by a Marine orderly, Seligman and Sherman (the captain last), become the final Lexington crewmen to leave the smoldering carrier, reaching the destroyer Hammann.

From the surrounding rescue ships, all eyes are on the wrecked Lexington, whose hull is turning red and white from internal fires. The blazes cook off 30 aircraft parked on the flight deck, loaded with ammunition, sending tracers zooming in all directions. The task force moves away while the destroyer Phelps (one of the first to sail out of Pearl Harbor on December 7) moves in to end the carrier’s agony with five torpedoes. Stroop, weary, heads down to an officer’s stateroom to clean up, and feels but does not see the coup de grace. At about 8 p.m., Phelps performs the unpleasant task, firing eight torpedoes at the carrier. Four explode, setting off an explosion so fierce that Phelps’ skipper, Lt. Cdr. Edward L. Beck, thinks his ship has been hit by a torpedo. On a rescue ship, Lt. Jack Smith can’t watch the carrier explode and start to sink. Shipmates who have been with Lexington since commissioning in 1927 stand crying. As Seaman Herbert of West Virginia says later, “All the fellows were crying and weeping like young girls, so was I.”

Lexington’s last recorded position is latitude 15º12’S, longitude 155º27E. She heads to the bottom with the bodies of 216 men and the remains of 36 aircraft aboard. Nineteen of her planes land on Yorktown, and 2,735 members of Lexington’s crew survive to fight another day. Many of them become the nucleus crews of escort carriers sent to defeat Hitler’s U-Boats in the Atlantic.

Sailors abandon Lexington.

While the carriers trade battles, the men of Neosho and Sims struggle to keep the blazing tanker afloat. Rescue ships are looking in the wrong place, survivors are floating helplessly in the water, but those aboard Neosho work to care for the wounded, properly bury the dead at sea, and keep their eyes skinned for patrol planes, as Neosho drifts slowly westward on the trade winds.

On Yorktown, sailors assemble piles of bodies and body parts, covering them under canvas sheets. One pile is placed in the main mess hall on the third deck. When Buckmaster releases men to get some chow, they unknowingly troop down to that mess hall, and turn back, unable to eat. Worried about crew morale, Buckmaster orders burial-at-sea ceremonies that night.

Over Yorktown’s fantail, carpenters build a see-saw-like device to slide the wrapped bodies. Chaplain Hamilton breaks out a decent uniform and the appropriate prayers for the dead. Medics prepare the bodies for burial in the parachute locker on the hangar deck. With only flashlights to illuminate the scene, the medics snap off the dog tags, wrap the bodies in bed sheets, and weight them down with spare firebricks. Yeomen obediently jot down the dead men’s serial numbers for the record.

Howard Stein, normally a drummer and violinist with the ship’s band (Navy musicians train on two instruments: one for entertainment and one for ceremonies), having spent the day assisting medics, volunteers for the burial detail. “I was 20,” Stein says later. “A couple of years earlier, I had tasted some booze, but I couldn’t take it. One sip and that was it. I didn’t like the taste. The corpsman came by with this bottle of Ten-High whisky and poured a shot for each of us before we went up to the parachute locker. It went down like water.”

Stein prepares the body of Lt. Milton Ricketts, who has a large piece of shrapnel jammed in his leg. Stein asks what he should do about the piece of metal. A medic peers at it with his flashlight, and pronounces at last, “Just wrap him up.”

As the lugubrious work continues into the night, Fletcher’s task force withdraws — per Adm. Chester Nimitz’s orders — from the Coral Sea, heading east. A near-miss near Yorktown’s bow severs pipes leading from an airplane gasoline storage tank, which leaves an oil slick behind the carrier. Yorktown appears to be bleeding. Her escort destroyers zigzag through the carrier’s wake to disperse the gasoline.

While some maneuvering remains, for all intents and purposes the Battle of the Coral Sea is over.

The Japanese are down to 39 planes, the Americans to 49. With the sinking of Lexington, the Japanese have won a tactical victory, but the “temporary postponement” of the invasion of Port Moresby will become permanent, and Japan’s plans to encircle Australia crushed. The anniversary of the battle will become a public holiday in Australia, as the nation continues to recognize the American achievement in saving Australia, and show their gratitude for that achievement by celebrating Coral Sea Week annually with marches by servicemen from both countries in Australia, port visits by American warships (for many years often the carrier USS Coral Sea) and social functions to welcome American dignitaries.

But most importantly, for the first time in history, a full-scale naval battle has been fought in which neither side’s ships sight each other. All the damage was accomplished by aircraft.

Back on Yamato, Yamamoto and his staff learn that Inouye has cancelled the Port Moresby invasion, but that the Americans have taken a beating. Yamamoto’s staff officers demand that a strongly worded telegram be sent to Inouye and Fourth Fleet for their “defeatism.” Ugaki suggests that a “request” be sent, but an order to resume the attack is finally fired off. But given the lack of air cover, it seems rational that the Port Moresby invasion be postponed to July.

Imperial General Headquarters reports the inflated toll of American sinkings to the public, and calls them a “most significant gift to the nation,” and an Imperial Rescript is put out.

Ugaki writes more accurately, “The people will be very pleased, but I could not help feeling somewhat dissatisfied.”

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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