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on the flames before collapsing dead. Soon, however, in Stroop’s words ‘fires had gotten increasingly violent and we were beginning to get explosions … that sounded like a freight train rumbling up the hangar deck … A rushing wall of flame … would erupt around the perimeter of the elevator.’ Leaking gasoline fumes triggered a massive blast below decks: ammunition began to cook off; the decision was made to abandon the ship. Its senior officer, Admiral Fitch, walked calmly across the flight deck accompanied by a marine orderly clutching his jacket and dispatches, to be picked up by a destroyer’s boat below. Men in their hundreds began to leap into the water. The rescuers were so effective that only 216 of Lexington’s crew were lost out of 2,735, but a precious carrier was gone. Yorktown was severely damaged, though she was able to complete landing on planes two minutes after sunset. In the small hours of darkness, the dead were buried over the side, in expectation of renewed action next day.

The Battle of the Coral Sea

But the battle was done: both fleets turned away. Fletcher’s task groups had lost 543 lives, sixty aircraft and three ships including Lexington. Inoue lost over 1,000 men and seventy-seven aircraft – the carrier Zuikaku’s air group suffered heavy attrition. But the balance of destruction favoured the Japanese, who had better planes than the Americans and handled them more effectively. Amazingly, however, Inoue abandoned the operation against Port Moresby and retired, conceding strategic success to the US Navy. Here, once again, was a manifestation of Japanese timidity: victory was within their grasp, but they failed to press their advantage. Never again would they enjoy such an opportunity to establish dominance of the Pacific.

In the course of the war, the US Navy would show itself the most impressive of its nation’s fighting services, but it faced a long, harsh learning process. Several early commanders were found wanting, because they were slow to grasp the principles of carrier operations, which would dominate the Pacific campaign. American fliers’ courage was never in doubt, but at the outset their performance lagged behind that of their enemies. At Pearl Harbor, albeit against an unprepared and static enemy, Japanese planes achieved the remarkable record of nineteen hits and detonations out of forty torpedo launches, a record no other navy matched. When US carrier planes attacked Tulagi anchorage on 3 May 1942 against slight opposition, twenty-two Douglas Devastator torpedo-bombers achieved just one hit. Attacking Shokaku two days later, twenty-one Devastators scored no hits at all. Most American torpedoes, the Japanese said later, were launched too far out, and ran so slowly that they were easily avoidable.

Among US naval aircraft, the Coral Sea battle showed that the Dauntless dive-bomber was alone up to its job, not least in having adequate endurance. The Devastator was ‘a real turkey’, in the words of a flier, further handicapped by high fuel consumption. Worst of all, Mk 13 aerial and Mk 14 sea-launched torpedoes were wildly unreliable, unlikely to explode even if they hit a target. A most un-American reluctance to learn from experience meant that this fault, afflicting submarine as much as air operations, was not fully corrected until 1943.

War at sea was statistically much less dangerous than ashore for all participants save such specialists as aviators and submariners. Conflict was impersonal: sailors seldom glimpsed the faces of their enemies. The fate of every ship’s crew was overwhelmingly at the mercy of its captain’s competence, judgement – and luck. Seamen of all nations suffered cramped living conditions and much boredom, but peril intervened only in spasms. Individuals were called upon to display fortitude and commitment, but seldom enjoyed the opportunity to choose whether or not to be brave. That was a privilege reserved for their commanders, who issued the orders determining the movements of ships and fleets. The overwhelming majority of sailors, performing technical