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Battle of Midway

The first Japanese attack on Midway occurred on December 7, 1941, when destroyers successfully shelled naval installations. Then, flush with victory after victory in the Pacific and southeast Asia, Japan prepared in the spring of 1942 to capture the Midway Islands, establish a toehold in the Aleutians, and draw out what was left of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and decisively defeat it. Centered on four aircraft carriers, the Japanese fleet of 162 warships and auxiliaries approached Midway in the first days of June. Due to the breaking of most of Japan's JN 25 Naval codes, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, learned that Japan was planning a massive raid on Midway in the spring of 1942. Admiral Nimitz ordered his forces, centered on three carriers, to sea to intercept the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Marines, Navy and Army personnel on Midway worked furiously to strengthen their defenses. On June 3, Midway's aircraft spotted a part of the Japanese invasion fleet approaching. Before dawn, on June 4, the Japanese launched 108 aircraft, which attacked both Sand and Eastern islands, inflicting considerable damage. U.S. airplanes took to the air from Midway to counter the attack but the Marine fighters suffered greatly. Earlier, strike aircraft consisting of Army Air Corps bombers, Marine scout bombers and Navy torpedo planes departed Midway to attack the Japanese carriers. These Midway-based attacks were unsuccessful but added to the Japanese confusion and aided in the outcome of the battle. The Japanese, unaware that the American carrier aircraft were fast approaching, decided to launch a second attack upon Midway. The American carrier dive bombers struck while the Japanese were still rearming and the strike force aircraft were still on the carrier's decks. At the end of the Battle of Midway, all four Japanese carriers, which were involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor, had been sunk, while the United States lost the carrier Yorktown. The Japanese lost 256 of their finest aircraft, and more than 200 of their most experienced pilots and several thousand sailors perished. The Japanese Navy never fully recovered and its expansion into the Pacific had been stopped. American naval power in the Pacific was restored. The American victory at Midway was the turning point of the Pacific campaign of World War II. - NPS