The Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway took place within the days of June 4th and June 7th of 1942. The Imperial Japanese Navy wanted to invade numerous Pacific islands in order to confine Australia, so they could expand their SE Pacific territory. The United States base at the Midway Islands would be the only thing to halt the Imperial Japanese Navy's progress.

The U.S. Naval Intelligence had been reading in on the Japanese's secret coded messages, which they referred to as JN-25. In May of 1942, the American military had discovered that the Japanese had planned to launch an immense onslaught in early June on the location point known as AF. It was ambiguous what the location of AF was. Most in the Pacific believed Location AF was Midway, while the Americans in Washington considered AF to be located in the Aleutian Islands. There was no way to clearly find out where AF was. A young officer named, Jasper Holmes thought of a plan to discover AF's location. He prompted the base commander of Midway to radio Pearl Harbor, saying that the base's drinking water was running low. Soon afterwards a JN-25 message noted that AF had some fresh-water malfunctions and the assault should go as concerted.

Vice Admiral William Halsey was supposed to be in charge of the overall operation, but Halsey was afflicted with a skin disease and was confined to a hospital for the duration of the battle. Halsey was substituted by Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance. The Imperial Japanese Navy leaders were expecting Halsey and had planned for his tactics, but were unaware of his condition, which gave the United States a slight tactical advantage.

The Japanese had the advantage in numbers; they had four aircraft carriers and about 150 support ships, while the United States had three carriers and only 50 support ships. The battle started when Japanese aircraft dropped many bombs on the Midway base, heavily damaging it. Now the American bombers took the sky and intercepted the Japanese bombers. Later, the carriers got involved in the battles. American planes flew over the Japanese carriers, dropping many bombs and torpedoes on them. All four Japanese carriers would be destroyed, while the United States lost one out of their three carriers. With the no more carriers, the Japanese lost the battle, along with 2,500 men. 307 men of the United States perished, too. This was the first major sea battle where aircraft carriers played a major role in the outcome. The