Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Isoroku Yamamoto suffered a decisive defeat by two carrier strike groups of the U.S. Pacific Fleet near Midway Atoll, about 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) northwest of Oahu. Yamamoto had intended to capture Midway and lure out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet, especially the aircraft carriers which had escaped damage at Pearl Harbor.

Before the battle, Japan desired to extend its Pacific defense perimeter, especially after the Doolittle air raid of Tokyo in April 1942, and to clear the seas for attacks on Midway, Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii. A related Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands began one day earlier, on 3 June. The Japanese strike force at Midway, known as the Kidō Butai, was commanded by Chuichi Nagumo. Yamamoto's plan for the operation, which depended on precise timing and coordination, was undermined by its wide dispersal of forces, which left the rest of the fleet unable to support the Kidō Butai effectively.

On 4 June, the Japanese began bombing Midway and prepared to wait for the Pacific Fleet to arrive from Pearl Harbor to defend the island. Unknown to Yamamoto, U.S. code breakers had determined the date and location of his planned attack, enabling the Americans to prepare their own ambush; Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, had sent a large force under Frank Jack Fletcher to the Midway area before the Japanese had arrived. Land-based planes from Midway and carrier-based planes from the U.S. fleet surprised and attacked Nagumo's force. All four Japanese fleet carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū—present at the battle were sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. Japan also lost 3,000 men, including many well-trained and difficult-to-replace pilots. The U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann, while the carriers Enterprise and Hornet (under the command of Raymond Spruance during the battle) survived the fighting without damage.

The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War. After Midway and the attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's ability to replace its losses in materiel and trained men became rapidly insufficient, while the Americans' massive industrial and training capabilities increased over time. Historian John Keegan called the battle "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential."

After expanding the war in the Pacific to include western colonies, the Japanese Empire quickly attained its initial strategic goals of British Hong Kong, the Philippines, British Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, the last of whose oil resources were particularly important to Japan. Because of this, preliminary planning for the second phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942.^{[citation needed]}

Because of strategic disagreements between the Imperial Army (IJA) and Imperial Navy (IJN), and infighting between the Navy's Imperial General Headquarters and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's Combined Fleet, a follow-up strategy was not formed until April 1942. Yamamoto finally won the bureaucratic struggle with a thinly veiled threat to resign, after which his plan was adopted. Yamamoto's primary strategic goal was the elimination of America's carrier forces, which he regarded as the principal threat to the overall Pacific campaign. This concern was acutely heightened by the Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942, in which 16 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) B-25 Mitchell bombers launched from USS Hornet bombed targets in Tokyo and several other Japanese cities. The raid, while militarily insignificant, was a shock to the Japanese and highlighted a gap in the defenses around the Japanese home islands as well as the vulnerability of Japanese territory to American bombers.

This, along with other successful hit-and-run raids by American carriers in the South Pacific, showed that they were still a threat, although seemingly reluctant to be drawn into all-out battle. Yamamoto reasoned that another air attack on Naval Station Pearl Harbor would induce all of the American fleet to sail out to fight, including the carriers. However, considering the increased strength of American land-based airpower on the Hawaiian Islands since the 7 December 1941 attack, he judged that it was too risky to attack Pearl Harbor directly.

Instead, Yamamoto selected Midway, a tiny atoll at the extreme northwest end of the Hawaiian Island chain, approximately 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) from Oahu. Midway was outside the effective range of almost all the American aircraft stationed on the main Hawaiian Islands. It was not especially important in the larger scheme of Japan's intentions, but the Japanese felt the Americans would consider Midway a vital outpost of Pearl Harbor and would be compelled to defend it vigorously. The U.S. did indeed consider Midway vital: following the battle, the establishment of a U.S. submarine base on Naval Air Facility Midway Island allowed submarines operating from Pearl Harbor to refuel and re-provision, extending their radius of operations by 1,200 mi (1,900 km). In addition to serving as a seaplane base, Midway's airstrips were a forward staging point for bomber attacks on Wake Island.