FDR - Jean Edward Smith [348]
It was the first good news from the Pacific theater. Telegrams of support flooded the White House. Secretary Stimson, who had privately been critical of the president’s “pet project,” thought the raid had “a very good psychological effect both here and abroad.”51 Colonel Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor.
In Tokyo the attack came in the midst of a sharp disagreement between Yamamoto and the Japanese high command over future strategy. The high command wanted to consolidate Japan’s success, establish a ribbon of bases from the Bismarck Archipelago to American Samoa, and block the convoy routes from California and the Panama Canal to Australia and New Zealand. Yamamoto and the admirals of the Combined Fleet, intoxicated with victory, insisted it was time to finish the job begun at Pearl Harbor. They wished to seek out the remnants of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and defeat it in a decisive battle. The doctrine of “decisive battle” was a basic tenet of naval theology, and the Japanese admirals believed their opportunity was at hand.
For Yamamoto, Midway Island was the key. Whoever controlled Midway controlled the Pacific. If the island were in Japanese hands, Hawaii would be threatened with invasion. That would provide an important bargaining chip to force the United States to accept a negotiated settlement. If the Americans held Midway, the Japanese home islands would never be secure. Doolittle’s raid provided stunning confirmation of that. Yamamoto believed that if the Combined Fleet moved against Midway, the U.S. Navy would be forced to give battle. Final victory appeared one step away.
Rather than choose between the two alternatives, the Japanese government elected to move south and simultaneously attack Midway. That stretched the resources of the Imperial Navy to the limit. At the beginning of May, Vice Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue led a South Seas invasion task force against Port Moresby on the south coast of New Guinea—a vital step if Australia was to be isolated. To ensure success, the high command added two carriers from the Pearl Harbor attack force. Fortunately, American intelligence had by this time broken the Japanese naval code and knew Inoue’s destination. Admiral Nimitz dispatched a two-carrier task force (Lexington and Yorktown) to intercept the invaders, and on May 4, 1942, battle was joined.
For the next four days the American and Japanese carrier groups engaged in one of the most complex naval actions ever fought. The Battle of the Coral Sea was unique in that the two forces were separated by 175 miles of open water. The warships never came into contact, there was no surface gunnery, and the fight was waged by carrier-based aircraft. Tactically the result was a standoff. The Japanese sank the Lexington and destroyed Yorktown’s flight deck; the Americans sank a light carrier and severely damaged one of the large Pearl Harbor carriers. More significantly, the United States lost thirty-three aircraft; the Japanese twice that number. Having lost air superiority, Inoue canceled the invasion and returned to his base at Rabaul. In the strategic sense, with the invasion thwarted, the Battle of the Coral Sea was an undisputed Allied victory.
A more serious setback awaited the Imperial Navy. On May 27, 1942, the anniversary of the Battle of Tsushima Strait, the Combined Fleet sailed triumphantly from the Inland Sea against Midway. With Nagumo’s four large carriers in the van, Yamamoto brought eleven battleships, sixteen cruisers, and fifty-three destroyers to attack what was left of the American Pacific Fleet. Yamamoto assumed personal command and sailed aboard his flagship, the 67,000-ton Yamato, the largest battleship afloat.* His battle plan was simple enough: Nagumo’s carrier vanguard would assault Midway, the American fleet would challenge, and then Yamamoto’s battlewagons, lurking in the rear, would