La bataille de la mer de Corail

Just in case you're wondering Battle Of The Coral Sea has absolutely nothing to do with the Pacific Allies engaging the Japanese Fleet from May 4 to 8, 1942. The title should not lead you to expect to get a film like The Longest Day or Midway which are factual docudramas about those battles. The Coral Sea battle does deserve such a film and maybe an American or Australian film maker will do such a film some day. This ain't it.

This is instead about Cliff Robertson and his submarine sent on a scouting expedition to find out Japanese intentions. They do find out, but the submarine is destroyed and Robertson and his crew are taken prisoner.

After that the film plot line is one of escape as Robertson, his surviving crew members and some Aussie prisoners are also looking to break out. Along for the ride is Gia Scala daughter of a French plantation owner who is Japanese speaking and serves as interpreter. She's surviving the best she can by coyly alleging Vichy sympathies.

What Robertson might have been doing is anyone's guess because we knew of Japanese intentions having broken the Japanese code. So the film is false on the face of it. Add to that Robertson's rather unbelievable escape, similar to Errol Flynn and his crew in Desperate Journey.

Hopefully one day we'll get the real story of the Coral Sea. Demand it rather than this be the film that purportedly tells it.

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.

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 characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely accidental and unintentional", says the opening credits. That statement is just about the most accurate thing in this film.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was a strategically-important naval engagement fought between the U.S. and Japanese Navies between 4 and 8 May 1942. It stopped a Japanese attempt to carry out an amphibious invasion against Port Moresby, the last Allied stronghold in new Guinea. It also stopped Japanese expansion towards Australia.

However, there is nothing in this movie about the Battle of the Coral Sea until the last ten minutes. The rest is a fairly routine story about POWs and their warders. consequently any viewer interested in learning about the Battle of the Coral Sea is advised to look elsewhere than this mis- named movie.

When I watched "Battle of the Coral Sea", I naturally thought I'd be seeing a film all about this famous WWII battle. Instead, the battle is tacked on to the last 5-10 minutes of the movie and what precedes that isn't the battle or anything really about the battle! I am sure a lot of audience members were annoyed by this and what the film does show is poorly done (featuring lots of stock footage...some of which showed planes which never could have fought in the battle).

The story ACTUALLY is about Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Conway (Cliff Robertson) and his command of a submarine during the war. His ship is captured in a rather impossible to believe sequence but he is able to skuttle the boat after his crew is taken prisoner. The rest of the movie consists of Conway and a few other officers in a Japanese prison camp plotting their eventual escape.

So is the film any good? Not especially. It's not a good history lesson and the film itself only adequate. Not a terrible film...just not a very good one.