Tulagi: Seventy Years Ago In The Coral Sea

May 4, 1942, US Carrier Task Force 17, under command of Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, launched 60 aircraft from USS Yorktown to attack the Japanese invasion force already landing at Tulagi in the Solomons. Yorktown's aircraft surprised the Japanese, sank one destroyer and three minesweepers and heavily damaged a number of cargo ships.

At that point, the force was about a hundred miles south of Guadalcanal. Task Force 11, with aircraft carrier USS Lexington was about 60 miles East of TF 17.  The Japanese Carrier Strike Force with carriers Zuikaku and Shōkaku, two heavy cruisers, and six destroyers that sortied from Truk on 1 May was about 350 miles north of Tulagi under command of Vice Admiral Takagi. On learning of the US attack on Tulagi, Takagi moved his carrier strike force south into the Coral Sea.

The four-day-long Battle of The Coral Sea had begun. The fate of New Guinea and Australia was in the hands of two US Carrier Task Forces.

It had been five months since Pearl Harbor.