Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Campaign in rare pictures, 1942-1943

The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. Prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7–8 May 1942, the Imperial Navy of Japan had separated all its enemies from the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

In the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese won a tactical victory, but suffered an operational-level defeat: it did not attack Port Moresby in New Guinea and established a base from which its land-based aircraft could fly over the northern skies. To dominate. Australia. However, the overall military initiative was still in the hands of the Japanese.

His carrier striking force was still the strongest mobile air unit in the Pacific, and Japanese fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto hoped to use it to destroy the remnants of the US Navy's Pacific Fleet.

Yamamoto's plan was to attack and then attack the two islands that make up Midway Atoll. He argued that the US Navy could not tolerate such an operation so close to its base in Hawaii, and believed that - well, as it happened - that was what the US Pacific Fleet avoided. Tha he would take off from Pearl Harbor and expose himself to Shakti. of their carrier force and their most powerful battleships.

Yamamoto wanted his carrier, led by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, to ambush any American carriers and surface ships that ventured to counter the Japanese attack and the attack on Midway.

Instead, she was ambushed by three American carriers—Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet—which blew north and west from Hawaii. In just one day—June 4, 1942—Admiral Nagumo lost four of his carriers to the air units of his American adversaries, while US naval forces lost only one carrier (Yorktown) in return.

Why was Midway such a significant victory? First, the fact that the US Navy lost just one carrier at Midway meant that four carriers (Enterprise, Hornet, Saratoga, and Wasp) were available when the US Navy began the Guadalcanal Campaign in the first week of August 1942. became aggressive during ,

Second, the Imperial Japanese Navy's march into the Pacific was halted at midway and never resumed. After midway, the Japanese would react to the Americans and not the other way around. In Naval War College parlance, the "Operational Initiative" was passed from the Japanese to the Americans. Third, the victory of midway aided ally strategy around the world.

That last point needs some explaining. To understand this, let's start by placing ourselves in the place of President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in early May 1942.

The worldwide military outlook for the Allies appears very poor. German forces are breaking off the Soviet offensive to recapture Kharkov, and will soon launch a campaign to seize the Soviet Union's oil supplies in the Caucasus.

A German and Italian army is threatening the Suez Canal in North Africa. The Japanese have severely paralyzed the Pacific Fleet, pulled Britain's Royal Navy out of the Indian Ocean, and threatened to engage with the Germans in the Middle East.

If the Japanese and Germans join up, they will cut the British and American supply line through Iran to the Soviet Union, and they may pull the British and French colonies in the Middle East into axis orbit.

If this happens, Britain could lose control of the eastern Mediterranean and the Soviet Union could negotiate an armistice with Germany. Worse, the Chinese, cut off from aid from the United States, could even negotiate a ceasefire with the Japanese.

For Churchill, there is this additional and dire possibility that the Japanese could instigate a rebellion that would take India away from Britain. Something would have to be done to stop the Japanese and force them to focus their navy and air force in the Pacific, away from the Indian Ocean and (presumably) the Arabian Sea.

Midway saves the decision of the Americans and British to concentrate their major efforts against Germany, and American and British military personnel are free to plan their invasion of North Africa.

The US Navy and Marines also begin planning an operation on Guadalcanal against the Japanese. As Rear Admiral Raymond Spruens, one of the Navy's carrier task force commanders at Midway, put it after the battle, "We were not defeated by these superior Japanese forces.

A German and Italian army is threatening the Suez Canal in North Africa. The Japanese have severely paralyzed the Pacific Fleet, pulled Britain's Royal Navy out of the Indian Ocean, and threatened to engage with the Germans in the Middle East.

If the Japanese and Germans get involved, they will cut the British and American supply line through Iran to the Soviet Union, and they may pull the British and French colonies in the Middle East into axis orbit.

If this happens, Britain could lose control of the eastern Mediterranean and the Soviet Union could negotiate an armistice with Germany. Worse, the Chinese, cut off from aid from the United States, could even negotiate an armistice with the Japanese.

For Churchill, there is an additional and serious possibility that the Japanese could instigate a rebellion that would drive India away from Britain. Something would have to be done to stop the Japanese and force them to focus their navy and air force in the Pacific, away from the Indian Ocean and (presumably) the Arabian Sea.

Midway saves the decision of the Americans and British to focus their major efforts against Germany, and American and British military personnel are free to plan their invasion of North Africa.

The US Navy and Marines also begin planning an operation on Guadalcanal against the Japanese. As Rear Admiral Raymond Spruens, one of the Navy's carrier task force commanders at Midway, put it after the battle, "We were not defeated by these superior Japanese forces.