Battle Of Midway Essay

The date of the battle of midway was June 3,1942 to June 7,1942 the battle lasted a total of 4 days and resulted in thousand of casualties on each side. The island of midway is a small island in the middle of the pacific ocean that was an American Naval base. The officers in charge of the American side were Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond Spruance. The Japanese were Isoroku Yamamoto, Nobutake Kondo, and Chuichi Nagumo. The number of American troops at midway was in the thousands with the Japanese following with around the same amount of troops.

The Japanese decided that Pearl Harbor wasn’t enough. They decided that they would destroy the rest of America’s fleet. They decided to draw them in with an attack of Midway island and then demolish them. Japan made a huge mistake! The Battle of Midway paved the way for America and the Allies to move up on the offensive to Tokyo. If not for the Battle of Midway, the Japanese would have plowed through the entirety of World War II.

Moreover, the real nature of the Battle of Midway was poorly understood for some months after the Japanese defeat. On 9 June 1942, The New York Times noted that, “So far as we can now learn, the main damage to the Japanese fleet off Midway was inflicted by our land-based airplanes. The battle shows what land-based air power can do to naval and air power attacking from the open sea when that land-based air power is alert, well-trained, courageous, and exists in sufficient quantity…” But this statement was dead wrong. The Army Air Force B-17s and B-26s did not land a single hit on the Japanese carriers.

sea, it is important to note that the initial portion of this battle involved the Japanese attack on the American airfield on Midway Island in the early morning of June 4, 1942. The defenders of Midway would have had excellent observation and fields of fire into attacking enemy aircraft. This would have hindered the Japanese and their ability to advance undetected towards the island, as they would have been easy to spot against the backdrop of the horizon. Views from the air would have been advantageous to both forces in their search for the opposing ships. The Airfield on Midway was the initial key terrain of this battle, with the shift moving towards the carriers once the main battle started. The obstacles of this battle would have mainly

Nimitz was able to crack the Japanese secret code of communication and he was able to prepare his military for the surprise attack on Midway planned by the Japanese. Along with this, other strategies used were American submarine patrolling (Mcgowen 26). The submarines would gauge the enemy's attack and shoot torpedoes to sink the enemies ships. It would also help in sending secret codes that would help the United States military to prepare for the attack in addition to also protect their battleships. The United States were also advantageous on their land.

The battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific. Midway started on June 3rd and ended on June 6th 1942. Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, called in all available carriers and could come up with only three: Enterprise and the Hornet, commanded by Raymond Spruance, also the Yorktown(Great Events). Those carriers and other ships made up the Nimitz defence force. Nimitz also ordered that Midway be reinforced with 120 planes, antiaircraft guns, and 3,632 defenders, also that the three carriers were Northeast of Midway(Great Events). The consequences of Midway was Japan lost four heavy carriers, and later lost the war. The U.S. dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an end to World War 2. The development of the bomb began in 1939, also the research program began in October 1939, the project was called the

The Japanese seemed to take more stock in the old form of war as an art form rather something that should be prepared for with training and logical thought and decision making skills. The logistical systems for both the Japanese and American forces were something that has to be considered in the study of the battle of Midway. Naval battles rarely have the luxury of stockpiling resources, and it was imperative that both the Japanese and Americans had resources available to accommodate such large numbers of aircraft and ships. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, they had failed to attack major targets. They missed their opportunity to attack the dry docks of the harbor and the numerous fuel depots.

The Midway Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean approximately 1,486 miles to the west of the island of Hawaii. The U.S. Navy first occupied the islands in the early 1940’s and used them as a forward operations base, which included a seaport with multiple landing strips. Both sides saw the island as a key asset to acquire which in turn would cut the vast size of the Pacific Ocean in half. The Battle of Midway however was not the first time that the islands saw conflict. On December 7 1941, about 30 minutes into the attack on the naval port of Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces made their first attempt to claim the site. They were unsuccessful in there initial attempt but

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 dealt a devastating catastrophe for the Japanese naval and air capabilities with destroying four carriers, one heavy cruiser, 248 aircraft, and 3,057 personnel. The Americans lost one aircraft carrier, one destroyer, 150 aircraft, and 307 personnel. Historically, Midway has been considered the turning point in the Pacific theater of World War II. Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas that inevitably led denying Japan the ability to achieve its limited policy objective: to destroy the American carrier force in the Pacific and use the Aleutians and Midway Island as stepping stones for a Japanese

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.

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.

The Battle of Midway was fought with a variety of naval ships such as battleships, destroyers, aircraft carriers, as well as naval planes and submarines. Many of these ships and planes were lost during this battle especially for the Japanese.(Cressman, Robert J., "No End Save Victory", Naval Historical Center, June 1998)

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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.