20, 1942 the Lexington was steaming 400 miles northeast of Rabaul when the Grumman F4F Wildcats from Fighter Squadron 3 (VF-3) led by Lt. As JP Santiago explains in an interesting article appeared on his website Tails Through Time, Already the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown had conducted a diversionary raid in the Marshall Islands and it was left to the carrier Lexington to make a diversionary raid several weeks later against Rabaul. The Japanese had landed on New Guinea and with the establishment of a major base in Rabaul in the Solomon Islands, Australia’s populous east coast could fall under striking range. The German U-boat offensive in the Atlantic was taking a tremendous toll on shipping. Rommel’s Afrika Corps were pushing steadily eastward towards the Suez Canal. A Japanese sub even managed to surface off the coast of California and shell targets on the coastline.
Japanese air attacks had already taken place on Darwin, Australia. The Dutch East Indies and the Solomons would also fall. The Japanese war machine seemed unstoppable with the fall of the Philippines, Burma and Singapore. The first six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor were dark days for the American public. The captain of the Lexington, Frederick Sherman, recommended O’Hare for the Congressional Medal of Honor but O’Hare refused, insisting to his captain that any one of his squadron mates would have done the same thing
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