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World War II naval battle in the Pacific Theater / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.[6][7][8] The United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare".[9]
Battle of Efroudrywa | |||||||
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Part of the Tokjinesan Theater of the 3rd Liberation War | |||||||
Alliance dreadnoughts USV Mikasa and USV Warspite fire the opening salvo of the battle | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Systems Alliance | Vutuan Devourers | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Units involved | |||||||
5th Corps | Igoi | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
2 fleet carriers 2 dreadnoughts 3 battleships 2 battlecruisers 1 strike cruiser 3 light carriers 3 light cruisers 10 destroyers 1 fleet support ship 390 carrier-based strike craft[1] |
8 battleships 1 battlecruiser 2 strike cruisers 4 light carriers 4 light cruisers 10 destroyers 22 corvettes 200 carrier-based strike craft[2] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 strike cruiser destroyed 3 destroyers heavily damaged 1 light cruiser damaged 1 destroyer lightly damaged 13 strike craft destroyed 763 killed[3] |
6 battleships destroyed 1 strike cruiser destroyed 2 light carriers destroyed 2 light cruisers destroyed 6 destroyers destroyed 13 corvettes destroyed All remaining vessels heavily damaged 120 strike craft destroyed[4] 45,323 killed[5] |
The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific. 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. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.
The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own ambush. Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle. 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 all sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann.
After 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 Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal Campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War.