(4 of 5)
High above him a bomber circled, while an observer took movies of one of the great naval battles of World War II. He caught the zigzag wakes of six warships, dodging a shower of bombs, the telltale circulars of two stricken aircraft carriers steaming out of control, the streaking course of bellowing dive-bombers blasting at stricken ships.
It did not end when the enemy turned around. Unlike the Battle of Java, where Allied naval forces potted Jap merchantmen, were themselves knocked off by Jap warcraft, the fighters in the Coral Sea concentrated on the enemy's warcraft. They were at it until Saturday night.
After the first three days of battle, Radio Tokyo claimed a great victory, hissed excitedly about two U.S. carriers and a battleship sunk, a battleship of the British Warspite class heavily damaged (Britain tersely and immediately replied that no Warspite or other British battlewagon had been sunk or damaged). Then Tokyo began to hedge.
Airmen still pounding at the Jap task force knew why. The Jap was confused, in disorder, slowing up by the time Tokyo aired its first brag. By the time the real returns began to come in, the task force was on the run.
No Time for Rejoicing. The Jap had taken a shattering defeat. The Navy listed his losses: sunk, one aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, two destroyers, one seaplane tender, four gunboats, two submarines, three supply vessels; damaged, a carrier, heavy cruiser, light cruiser, seaplane tender, two merchantmen.
On the U.S. side there had been losses in planes, and probably in ships. It took Douglas MacArthur's angry prose to as sure the U.S. people that the victory had not been too expensive: "The enemy version of the battle off, the northeast coast of Australia is entirely fictional and has no semblance of a true communiqué of fact. . . . His claims of damage ... are fantastic. Our losses compared to his own are relatively light."
In Australia's fighting forces there was no time for rejoicing. The Jap had lost only a small part of his Navy. He might, probably would, be back. He had to be kept under bombing, under ceaseless reconnaissance. On that tense battlefront men could see, hear and feel the enemy.
"Mothers of America," said the radio voice, not the least bit tense, "this Mother's Day finds your sons fighting for freedom on world wide battlefronts...Victory in this war cannot be won in a day...There will be long periods of silence when your boys will be active at their stations in far places from which no word can come... There will be losses along the road to victory. If it is God's will that your son or mine be called to make the supreme sacrifice, I know that we will face this stern reality as bravely as they do themselves... As they serve, you also are serving your nation at your...post."
There was more than comfort for the mothers of America in what Admiral Nimitz said. There was also, perhaps unwittingly, an expression of his own lot as Commander of the Fleet whose task force had just won the battle he helped to plan.