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Show In May, 1942 In World War II, the first hint of victory came from U.S. forces in the Coral Sea in May, 1942, in a battle which was actually won, tactically, by the Japanese. THE U.S. Navy lost a large carrier Lexington, oiler Neosho and destroyer Sims. The Japanese lost a small carrier Shoho and a few small vessels at Tulagi. Strategically, the battle was i U.S. victory because the lapanese were turned back in heir planned invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea. THIS BATTLE shows better than most how wildly inac- curate wartime reporting is and why such film-clip historical treatments as likeable like-able Lowell Thomas' television programs are of little value in 1979. The New York Times on May 9, 1942, claimed in a streamer on the front page that the Japanese had been repulsed in a great Pacific battle, with 17 to 22 of their ships sunk or crippled! HANSON BALDWIN, then the top military critic of that newspaper, saw the battle as possibly the greatest in American naval history! May, 1942, was surely the beginning of the turnaround of the war in the Pacific, and to be remembered as such. |