Hello and welcome to episode 107 of the unauthorized history of the Pacific War podcast.

My name is Seth Perridden, historian and deputy director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum here at Camp Shelby.

And with me, as always, is my esteemed co-host, retired Navy Captain Bill Toadie,

former skipper of the Fast Attack Submarine, USS Indianapolis, Commodore of Submarine Squadron 3 in Pearl Harbor, many of the postings. Bill, how are you this morning? I'm doing great, South. Outstanding. We're going to keep trucking along through the history of the Pacific War here. We're going to start today by discussing one of the more important events of the Pacific Theater or Naval History, for that matter. That being, of course,

the very first carrier battle, Battle of Coral Sea. While many see Coral Sea as kind of a

side show to the main event that will take place a month later in the waters around Midway

Atoll, Coral Sea was actually a huge event, a really, really big deal, shall we say. This is where the doctrine for both

the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy and their aircraft carriers would first be tested

in carrier-to-carrier, carrier-versus carrier battle. While the hit-and-run carrier raids of February

and March tested American carrier doctrine to an extent. And the Pearl Harbor raid, as well as

Indian Ocean raids, tested Imperial Navy doctrine also to an extent. This is the very first time,

as I said, that both navies tested each other's way of doing things and in the process

found things that worked and things that, well, didn't work. So let's dig into it. Bill, set the

stage for us. What are we looking at in

early May, late February, early, I'm sorry, late April, early May, 48, 42. Yeah, great, Seth.

Hey, one of the reasons that you and I make such a great team is you know a lot of the personalities

involved in each one of these campaigns during your time at the World War II Museum,

you got to meet and do oral histories with a lot of the absolute, I mean, the individuals who actually

did the things we're going to be talking about. In my case, you know, being retired Navy captain,

Pacific Fleet Sailor, I steamed these oceans and seas in very exact places we talk about.

So I've looked at, you know, many of the islands that we're going to talk about in most cases

through the periscope of my submarine, but, you know, was able to see how tight the, you

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