Remarks as Prepared for Delivery for
The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne,
Secretary of the Interior
Battle of the Coral Sea Anniversary Ball
Queensland, Australia
May 8, 2007
I am honored to be here today to represent the people of the United States at this great celebration of the 65th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea – a battle that helped change the course of World War II ….a battle that meant so much to the defense of our two countries and our ultimate triumph in the Pacific.
Just a few months ago, I attended the 65th Anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii that plunged our nations into war. Gazing into the water of the harbor, one can still see a slick of oil still leaking from the sunken remains of the Battleship Arizona. It is a continual reminder of the horror that our two countries faced at the time and of the very real possibility that the Japanese conquest of the Pacific could not be stopped.
Our two nations suffered through months of bad news. Defeat after defeat. Not a single major enemy ship sunk. A tide of Japanese conquest rolling across the Pacific. Guam. Borneo. Luzon. Manilla. Bataan. Wake Island. The Solomon Islands. Singapore. The Dutch East Indies. New Guinea. Corregidor. The list goes on.
Then, at last, the Battle of the Coral Sea. The first turning point. An enemy aircraft carrier sunk for the first time. A Japanese invasion fleet turned back for the first time. A line drawn. This far and no farther.
History usually is written in broad strokes. When historians look back on the 20th Century, they will write about the great struggle against the force of fascism in the first half of the century and the great struggle against the forces of communism in the second half of the century.
In reality, however, history’s portrait doesn’t consist of broad brush strokes. It consists of thousands upon thousands of tiny brush strokes – each one the actions of an individual man or woman at a particular place and at a particular time. That is what we celebrate today. Not simply a phrase “Victory in the Pacific.” Not even the phrase so commonly used, “The Battle that Saved Australia.”
These statements are true and we can rejoice that they are true. But today, we remember, we honor, and we celebrate the men who fought so bravely 65 years ago – and especially the men who laid down their lives that we might be free.
Mervyn Johnston was a crewman aboard the HMAS Australia during the Battle of the Coral Sea. His ship was defending Port Moresby against an imminent Japanese invasion. On May 8th, 1942, he was monitoring radio traffic as the battle reached its climax.
His remembrance of that day is haunting.
He recalled, and I quote, “We could hear . . . the comments of various pilots . . . [who] in some cases were running out of fuel or could not land on the ‘Lexington’ or the ‘Yorktown’ as they were either damaged or on fire. Many messages were goodbyes to friends or loved ones.”
He was listening to the voices of men who had heroically done their part – who had painted their tiny brush stroke on the portrait of history – and were saying their last words to their loved ones just before their planes crashed into the waters of the Coral Sea.
We are here today as free men and women because of they did their duty and made their sacrifice.
Some of the stories of the battle are truly extraordinary. The night before the climactic battle, a 30-year-old New Yorker named John Powers lectured his fellow pilots about being certain they hit their targets when they dive bombed enemy ships. This meant waiting until the last second before releasing the bomb, even if it meant they couldn’t pull the aircraft out of the dive before crashing into the sea. The next day, Lieutenant Powers, reiterated his message to his fellow pilots saying, and I quote, “"Remember the folks back home are counting on us. I am going to get a hit if I have to lay it on their flight deck."
Lieutenant Powers did exactly that. He dove so close to an enemy carrier to deliver his bomb that he could not pull up. He perished as the carrier flight deck exploded around him. The carrier became the first major Japanese ship to be sunk in the war. Lt. Powers and his fellow pilots demonstrated that the enemy who had conquered so much of the Pacific and was standing at the doorstep of Australia was not invincible. The enemy could be beaten.
In the months and years to come, the people of the United States, Australia and our allies completed the job – tiny brush stroke by tiny brush stroke we painted the portrait of victory. We defended democracy and freedom from the forces of fascism and tyranny.
Today, our one-time enemy, Japan, is a free and prosperous democracy. Today, our one-time enemy is our friend and ally. Truly we have much to celebrate together.
The friendship between the peoples of Australia and the United States, however, is much deeper than this one battle. And indeed much deeper even than the ocean upon which this battle was fought.
As former colonies of England, we celebrate a unique bond. We embrace common values and a common heritage as two of the world’s oldest continuous democracies.
Both of our nations grew out of pioneer roots. We have a sense of shared history and experience that is rare among the nations of the world.
Though separated by the expanse of the globe, we are intimately linked. Three Americans sailed with Captain Cook on his voyage of discovery to Australia. Thousands of Australians journeyed to California in the late 1840s as part of the Gold Rush. More than 10,000 Americans journeyed to New South Wales and Victoria to seek gold in the 1850s. Today, some 90,000 Aussies live in the United States, and more than 50,000 Americans live in Australia.
American and Aussie soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen have fought side by side with each other in every major military conflict since World War I. This relationship was deepened during World War II and formalized in the 1951 ANZUS Treaty.
Today we are working together to counter the threat of terrorism, denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and promote prosperity and democracy throughout the Pacific and East Asia. Our militaries are working together to develop and purchase equipment and systems that allow us to communicate and share information more easily. Our intelligence communities work closely to detect and monitor threats to freedom and democracy around the world.
Meanwhile, Under the Australia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, we have seen trade between our two countries growing steadily. In fact, the United State is Australia’s second largest trading partner. We share a commitment to free trade as the catalyst for economic growth and prosperity and are working together to open trading doors around the world.
Beyond all of this, I think Americans and Aussies just simply like each other. And we almost speak the same language.
The Australian people have a love of life that is infectious. I think, when we are at our best, we Americans share that love of life.
So let us today remember the heroes of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Let us give thanks for our freedom. Let us celebrate our friendship. And let us commit ourselves to the future – to continue to work together for a world in which all people can enjoy the gift of freedom and prosperity that was defended at such great cost 65 years ago today.