Believing Takagi's carrier force was somewhere north of him, in the vicinity of the Louisiades, beginning at 06:19, Fletcher directed "Yorktown" to send 10 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers as scouts to search that area. Hara in turn believed Fletcher was south of him and advised Takagi to send the aircraft to search that area. Takagi, approximately east of Fletcher (), launched 12 Nakajima B5Ns at 06:00 to scout for TF 17. Around the same time, Gotō's cruisers and launched four Kawanishi E7K2 Type 94 floatplanes to search southeast of the Louisiades. Augmenting their search were several floatplanes from Deboyne, four Kawanishi H6Ks from Tulagi, and three Mitsubishi G4M bombers from Rabaul. Each side readied the rest of its carrier attack aircraft to launch immediately once the enemy was located.