The background events leading to the Battle of the Coral Sea significantly invigorated the turning point in the Pacific War. Japanese commanders determined to never let their country suffer attack, desired an expansion of their defensive perimeter through an ‘invasion on Tulagi, Solomon Islands, May 3rd in 1942’. (Staben, …show more content…
May 7th, 1942 (secondworldwarhistory, 2016) allied forces attempted to intercept the Japanese, consequently losing the ‘USS Neosho’ and the finest destroyer- the ‘USS Sims’. Seeking revenge, America launched an attack which successfully resulted in sinking Japan’s aircraft carrier, ‘The Shoho’ as well as causing damage to other ships. As a result, Japan decided to call off the attack on Port Moresby and return to New Britain. On the trip back the allied forces and the Japanese spot one another. The allied forces managed to score devastating hits to the Japanese carrier ‘Shokaku’ soon backfiring in a loss of America’s aircraft carrier ‘Lexington’. Tommy Simms, veteran of World War 2 said “They lost a lot of men out there.” Exactly ‘656 Japanese soldiers and 966 American soldiers died and 69 Japanese aircraft and 92 American aircraft’ were destroyed. (secondworldwarhistory, …show more content…
Protecting their country, Australia joined forces with America to prevent Japan’s invasion plans while also putting a stop to Japan’s strategy of cutting the allied forces from sharing supplies. Through skilful ship handling no Australia ships were lost- ‘We were lucky, we never copped one’ (Simms, n.d.). With the help of Australian ships harsh damage was caused to Japanese ships causing them to change their plans, cancelling their participation at the Battle of Midway. Australia’s involvement in the Battle of the Coral Sea was a major turning point in the Pacific War because without Australia the battle would have resulted critically