the eastern coast of New Guinea. Both fell with little resistance, but the incipient enemy base, and the airfields at both places, presented the Allies with a fine new target, and a chance to get back at the enemy at his most vulnerable time – before he had consolidated his beachhead. The raid on Rabaul was shelved. To provide security for the carriers' operations in the Gulf of Papua, Brown detached a surface force to remain in the waters of the Louisiade Archipelago, near Rossel Island, to intercept any enemy thrust toward Port Moresby and cover the arrival of Army troops scheduled to arrive at about that time at Nouméa, New Caledonia. He placed this force, Astoria, , Louisville, , Anderson, Sims, Hammann, and Hughes, under Rear Admiral John G. Grace, Royal Navy. While the patrol proved uneventful for Grace's ships, which rejoined TF 11 on 14 March, the Lae-Salamaua raid carried out by planes from Yorktown and Lexington forced the Japanese to husband carefully their amphibious resources, already on the proverbial "shoestring", for their planned operations in the Solomon Islands. Anderson, operated with Yorktown through late April, patrolling the Coral Sea as the sole barrier against Japanese expansion in that region, putting into Tongatapu, in the Tonga (or "Friendly") Islands, late that month. With intelligence data indicating that the postponed movement against Tulagi, in the Solomons, was imminent—confirmed by the Japanese landing men and supplies there on 29 April and establishing a seaplane base on the heels of the retreating Australian garrison, TF 17 moved north to deal with this threat. Battle of the Coral Sea On 4 May, Anderson, her men "anxious to get a chance to attack" the enemy, screened Yorktown as she launched three attacks on the incipient base at Tulagi, the carrier's planes sinking a destroyer and some small auxiliaries, at the relatively modest cost of only three aircraft (whose crews were later recovered). Reinforced on 6 May by Rear Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch's TF 11, Fletcher planned to meet the Japanese in the Coral Sea on 7 May, to stop the enemy thrust toward Port Moresby. On that day, each side attempted to strike blows with carrier aircraft; the Americans enjoying more success in that planes from Yorktown and Lexington sank . Japanese planes, attempting to strike the Americans, could not find them in the gathering darkness, and a twilight encounter between the returning