Battle Of Midway Dbq

It was a battle between the Americans and Japanese that happened on the 4th of June in 1942. To the Americans their nemesis, the Japanese looked brave and vicious. There have been very few battles to match this one including the battles of Trafalgar, Salamis, and Armada, other than those few battles this was the most decisive naval warfare in history (Ballard, 1999). Because the Japanese had so many more forces, they were expected to win (Wildenberg,2006). Midway was selected by Yamamoto because he wanted a larger area to protect Japan, he figured it would be better for them because it is closer to Japan not America. He also knew that America would try to protect it with their aircrafts so they were prepared (Krasner, 2014). Although, Admiral Nimitz of the United States Navy said that the battle is what made everything achievable

This intelligence allowed Nimitz to avoid a secondary naval battle and concentrate a surprise attack unforeseen by the Japanese at Midway. Nimitz was able to position the fleet out of the Japanese carrier’s striking range and hide fall under the protection of land based air at Midway. Aligning the three carriers and land-based air power was instrumental in matching and defeating the larger and more competent Japanese fleet.

Assisting its European allies in the war against the Nazi’s, the U.S. was focusing much of its attention on the Atlantic and European theatre. During this time most of the United States was focusing on the war planes and sending soldiers to help fight. With the focus being almost entirely on the Atlantic the U.S. Navy was slowly cannibalizing the Pacific fleet to help block shipping lanes and fight the German U-Boats that were ravaging the Atlantic coastlines and shipping lanes. With the war raging on so far to our east and at the time, no viable threat laid to our west. During this year diplomatic peace talks had begun with the Japanese in the attempt to strengthen our relationships with non allied countries in the western pacific. The Japanese on the other hand had a different idea of things to come. Prior to 1941, the Japanese thought that if a war were to begin that the United States would be their only enemy, however, Japan's entry into the Tripartite Alliance and the United States' aid commitments to Britain had created a new international line-up which made previous Japanese naval planning obsolete. [1] With previous planning now obsolete a new concept to include war against the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands was now a necessity. In January of 1941 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese combined fleet conceived a plan of a surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl

The Japanese planned to take out the coasts and island that the American Navy had. The Japanese Navy would try a mainland invasion of the United States if they could take the Midway Island. First they would probably take Hawaii then they would take the Panama Canal and then after that the Japanese would invade San Fransisco Bay then there would be a negotiation between the United States and Japan would gain all the land gained by the Japanese during the Pacific Campaign.

States interference. Midway was the first major naval battle between the United Stated and Japan after Pearl Harbor. It was also one of the most important battles in all of World

Despite all the success Japan had early in the war, they did not do as much damage to the United States Pacific fleet as they would have like to have done. This gave America a false sense of security at the time when Japan was preparing to take stronger action. Rear Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plan was to draw in the remaining American ships into an area where they could be attacked and destroyed by a much greater number of Japanese vessels. Admiral Yamamoto thought that if Japan captured valuable territory like the Midway Islands that the United States could not afford to give up, he could destroy the remaining American ships with ease because the Americans would have no supply chain.

……….The Battle of Midway was one of the most important battles of World War II. It was the turning point of the war in the Pacific between the United States and Japan. One of Japan’s main goals during WWII was to remove the United States as a Pacific power in order to gain territory in East Asia. The Japanese formulated a plan to sneak up on the U.S. forces. However, American code breakers had intercepted a number of Japanese transmissions.

On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Task Force comprised of six aircraft carriers. A support force, which included two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, three submarines, escorted it and eight oil supply ships, began their trek to Hawaii. They must travel four thousand miles across open sea and remain undetected by the UNITED STATES Forces. (Wisniewski 20) The UNITED STATES Military knew a surprise attack by Japan was possible and they thought they were prepared. Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the commanders of the UNITED STATES Naval and Army forces in Hawaii, respectively, had regularly scheduled training exercises and had taken many precautions to avert disaster. (Pearl Harbor’s History, Filmstrip)

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not quite as random as people may think, they didn't just attack us without reason. They saw our acts of helping the moving of cargo for allied ships as us helping the allies, and Pearl Harbor was their retaliation.

Without it, no one would ever be successful. The Japanese Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, had planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and was responsible for planning Operation Midway. He was very influential for the Japanese, as he did think that his strategy of sending separate groups to drag out the Americans in order to leave an opening to attack their base would work. However, his fault was not taking caution to protect his plans from the American code-breakers. After his plan began to fail, all hope was lost for the Japanese.

In the beginning of war, Japanese victory in Pacific terrified West Cost Americans. Partial victory for Americans appeared when Japanese capital Tokyo was bombed. It was less of a material loss but huge in terms of psychological attack. It was followed by the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942 and after that the decisive Battle of Midway Island took place. U.S. aircraft carriers destroyed three out of four Japanese carriers that sabotaged their further plans of invasion and they adopted a defensive strategy.

suffered a major defeat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, took advantage of the situation the U.S. was put in after its losses during Pearl Harbor (“Japs Risk Large Naval Units...”). With the backbone of U.S. Pacific Fleet torn out, Japan made several attempts to dominate the Pacific. Japan was anxious to settle their differences with the U.S., so they began risking large naval units in Pacific battles. An article posted in the Los Angeles Time, “Japs Risk Large Naval Units in Blows at U.S.” says, “For the sixth time in six months Japan made a deadly bid to capture the mastery of the Pacific, and for the sixth time she has failed after paying a price that is fast becoming prohibitive,” (“Japs Risk Large Naval Units...”). This article was posted days after the Battle of Midway, on June 7th, 1942 reflecting the actions of the Japanese Navy in the previous months. The Japanese were anxious to pounce on the weakened U.S. after Pearl Harbor, backing their attacks with large naval units. The Japanese felt that they needed to take over Midway Island in order to claim dominance over the U.S. in the Pacific.

Typical of Japanese naval planning during the Second World War, Yamamoto's battle plan was quite complex.[15] Additionally, his designs were predicated on optimistic intelligence information suggesting USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, forming Task Force 16, were the only carriers available to the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time. USS Lexington had been sunk and USS Yorktown severely damaged (and believed by the Japanese to have been sunk) at the Battle of the Coral Sea just a month earlier. The Japanese were also aware that USS Saratoga was undergoing repairs on the West Coast after taking torpedo damage from a submarine.

The Battle of Midway is considered the turning point in the Pacific War. The Battle of Midway is the result of poor planning and inadequate training of the Japanese, as well as the courage and intelligence of the US forces. The Japanese should have won the battle, but the US did win the battle. It was thought that there is no way the Japanese can lose the battle, but during the battle there was no way that they can win the battle.

Another advantage that we had, ironically, was surprise was on our side this time. Remember the Yorktown and how I mentioned it being badly damaged and had limped back to Pearl Harbor. Well the Carrier required a complete overhaul and the Captain went to the hospital to recover while Nimitz and the other cryptologists tried to figure out what "AF" meant, (at this point, they did not know that "AF" meant Midway and not the Aleutian Islands) and who would replace the sick Captain. Once Nimitz talked to the Captain, he asked for his recommendation and he said one of the destroyer Captains should command it and Nimitz was surprised but agreed. Then Nimitz went to the repair yard at the docks and when they were asked about how long it would take to repair the carrier because they needed it for wherever "AF" was. The repair crew replied that to fix the damaged carrier they would need 3 months to repair it Nimitz replied saying "we don't have 3 months, I will give you 3 days to fix it.” When they were done it was not pretty, but it was seaworthy they did all the repairs in 3 days in what would should have taken 3 months to do.