Battle of The Coral Sea
At 1135, VT-2 encountered the light carrier Shoho and immediately launched a well coordinated attack in conjunction with Bombing Squadron (VB) 2. While VB-2 took some of the fighter pressure off the torpedo bombers, Thornhill and his comrades split formation and attacked the carrier from both directions astern. All 12 planes made their runs and drops successfully and without loss to themselves. The "Devastators" claimed nine hits from 12 drops, one of which was credited to Lt. (jg.) Thornhill. The coordinated attacks of VT-2 and VB-2 sent Shoho to the bottom—the first enemy carrier sunk by American forces in World War II.
Read more about this topic: Leonard W. Thornhill
Famous quotes containing the words battle of, battle, coral and/or sea:
“I have just read your dispatch about sore tongued and fatiegued [sic] horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietem that fatigue anything?”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“The cities are the principal home and seat of the human group. They are the coral colony for Man, the collective being.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)
“For this communication is an influx of the Divine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)