Table of Contents
Could Japan have won at Midway?
FDR vetoed this approach—enabled, in part, by the American victory at Midway, which established that existing Allied forces in the Pacific could take on Japan. Victory at Midway would not have won Japan the war, but could well have given the Second World War a very different turn.
Who had the advantage in the battle of Midway?
The U.S. Navy’s decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan’s hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.
What would happen if Japan won midway?
One logical conclusion is that Midway would have fallen to the Japanese; although heavily defended, the island would have been surrounded. With the U.S. carriers gone, the Japanese would have had aerial dominance, allowing Imperial warships and aircraft to bomb the defenders at will.
What mistakes did the Japanese make at the Battle of Midway?
Another major flaw in Japan’s Midway strategy was the attitude of the Japanese Navy planners. Believing that Japan was invincible in war, the Japanese planners made the fatal mistake of underrating American military capabilities and response.
Did the Japanese have a battle plan for Midway Island?
Yet IJN officers founded their battle plan on two contradictory assumptions about how U.S. Navy commanders would react to a Japanese attack on Midway Island. In effect Yamamoto and his lieutenants foretold both that Admiral Chester Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet would fight and that it wouldn’t.
What was the result of the Battle of Midway?
The result of Japanese seafarers’ deference prior to Midway: the needless loss of the Kidō Butai, the IJN’s aircraft-carrier fleet and main striking arm. Worse from Tokyo’s standpoint, Midway halted the Japanese Empire’s till-then unbroken string of naval victories.
What is the significance of Midway Island to Yamamoto?
Sea-power scribe Julian Corbett urges a stronger fleet that wants to compel a weaker fleet to do battle to attack something the weak must defend—whether they want to or not. Yamamoto believed Midway Island represented such an object.
Despite Japanese mariners’ tactical brilliance and élan, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) leadership was prone to such ills as groupthink and strategic doublethink. Worse, the IJN fleet was cursed to be led by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto —a leader of such stature and mystique that subordinates deferred to him out of habit.