![]() 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. 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. Admiral Yamamoto finally won the bureaucratic struggle with a thinly veiled threat to resign, after which his plan for the Central Pacific was adopted. Because of this, preliminary planning for the second phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942.īecause of strategic disagreements between the Imperial Army (IJA) and Imperial Navy (IJN), and infighting between the Navy's GHQ and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's Combined Fleet, a follow-up strategy was not formed until April 1942. ![]() The latter, with its vital oil resources, was particularly important to Japan. The extent of Japanese military expansion in the Pacific, April 1942Īfter expanding the war in the Pacific to include Western outposts, the Japanese Empire had attained its initial strategic goals quickly, taking British Hong Kong, the Philippines, British Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia). The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War. ![]() lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann, while the carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet survived the battle fully intact.Īfter Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to replace its losses in materiel (particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots and maintenance crewmen) rapidly became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States' massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace. The four Japanese fleet carriers- Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier-were sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. Navy to prepare its own ambush.įour Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle. ![]() Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. The plan was undermined by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself. Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval 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". Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō north of Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. 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. ![]()
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