TheCodeBreakers
of Australia in search of the enemy. At 8:15 a.m. May 7 a message from a
Yorktown search plane was decoded as reporting the discovery of "•two
carriers and four heavy cruisers" 175 miles northwest of the American
force. Fletcher thought that this was the main Japanese force covering
the amphibious landing and flew off two deckloads of planes to attack it.
When the search pilot returned, it was discovered that the "two carriers
and four heavy cruisers" had resulted from a disarrangement of his
codepad; they should have been reported as "two heavy cruisers and two
destroyers." But another contact report alerted the fliers to the presence
nearby of the landing force itself, escorted by the light carrier Shoho.
They swarmed over Shoho and sank it in ten minutes—a record for the
war. "Scratch one flattop!" exulted one pilot. The transports, shorn of
their air cover, retired to the northward. This accidental attack on the
annaabi.ee 
