La bataille de la mer de corail

This movie is the prequel to the 1976 movie Midway. On May 8, 1942, the Allies won the first major battle of the Pacific War. The Battle of the Coral Sea was technically a draw but it saw a number of firsts_____for example_____it was the first battle fought in

which both sides never saw each other. It was a carrier battle. The first carrier battle actually. Japan lost the carrier Junyo and a destroyer. The United States, surprisingly enough, lost only one carrier, the converted battle cruiser Lexington, and one severely damaged. The Yorktown, which will go down a month later at Midway.

I am pleased to see that the vast majority of my IMDB colleagues have already done the heavy spadework required to bury this awful movie. Therefore, there is little for me to add beyond the fact that the film's title, as this review's title indicates, is your classic Hollywood bait and switch. In other words if you tune into this thing hoping to see some classic, naval combat then you will be grievously disappointed since the eponymous clash does not occur until the last five minutes or so and is mostly conveyed through stock footage. The vast majority of this dull dog is comprised of standard sub stuff and sub standard Japanese prison camp stuff (Think midget "Kwai" with a lobotomy). Give it a C minus.

A submarine crew captured by the Japanese attempt to escape from a remote island prison camp during WWII. Young leading man Cliff Robertson's efforts to appear older by sporting a Gable 'tache gives him the unfortunate appearance of a second-rate gigolo in uniform, but he gives a decent performance in this reasonably entertaining war picture. Presumably, budgetary constraints are responsible for its' prison camp being one of the most sparsely populated in movie history.

With the Japanese Navy steadily advancing towards Australia the decision is made to send a submarine named the U. S. S. Dragonfish out into the Coral Sea to gather intelligence on all enemy ships in that area and then proceed to a highly classified rendezvous point to deliver whatever information they may have collected. The man in charge of this mission is "LtCmdr Jeff Conway" (Cliff Robertson) is given strict orders to do whatever is necessary to prevent the Japanese from discovering the rendezvous point. However, his determination to carry out this order is soon tested after he is forced to scuttle the submarine and his men are subsequently tortured in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp pending his cooperation. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off relatively well and remained entertaining up until the final 10 minutes or so when stock war footage was inserted for effect. That being said, while certainly not a great war film by any means, it managed to keep my attention for the most part and I have rated it accordingly.

The Japanese lost the 11,000 ton light-carrier Shoho, while the Americans lost the much more valuable Lexington. In addition, each-side had a top-notch CV (Shokaku and Yorktown) damaged. The Japanese had a 3rd carrier, Zuikaku, which was undamaged during the battle. Based on that, the Japanese won the battle, however, their air group was punished heavily. Their carriers were assigned to support the invasion of Port Moresby, and they had suffered a lot of plane losses so that they no longer felt confident they could do this. So, this swings it to an overall draw.

In the end, it would be the Japanese who were hurting more, because the Americans not only had a lot more pilots in reserve, and thus could replace losses more easily, at this point in the war the Japanese Navy had the more experienced pilots. So, losing pilots hurt them more than it hurt the USA. Also, it took nearly 2 months to sail Shokaku back to Japan and repair her, but Yorktown headed for Pearl Harbor and was patched-up and ready for battle (although not fully repaired) in 3 days.

Incidentally, their plane/pilot losses were so heavy that Zuikaku sat out the battle of Midway waiting for replacement pilots. This was a huge mistake since the 5th flight deck would have been invaluable.