The Turning Points in the Pacific: The Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2014-08-18T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9: Midway’s Legacy

The Americans had won a stunning victory at Midway, and it allowed for the U.S. not only to even up the crucial carrier numbers game but also buy time. American shipbuilding would prove more than able to do the rest, and henceforth, it would be difficult for Japan to challenge America’s might in the field of carrier warfare. The U.S. still lagged behind in terms of battleships and tactical competence in “old fashioned” surface actions, but the Guadalcanal campaign would give the Americans plenty of experience as well.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the Battle of Midway is that the battle, which would prove so decisive in terms of the outcome in the Pacific, was neither a positional nor territorial battle. Midway was merely a convenient target chosen by Yamamoto to draw the Americans out, and both sides’ objectives were attritional attempts to degrade their opponents’ carrier units. Nevertheless, the result created space for the Americans to begin their cautious advance back across the Pacific. This started with Guadalcanal and proceeded along two axes. Nimitz would command the larger and predominantly naval effort across the central Pacific, and island fortresses such as Saipan and Iwo Jima would soon go down in military legend. To the south, General Douglas MacArthur led a campaign across New Guinea and the Philippines, with a more land-based focus. Notwithstanding that, it was off Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944 that the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered a fatal blow in the largest naval battle in history, during which four carriers and three battleships were lost. Japan’s Southern Resource Zone was thus collapsed from two different directions, and by early 1945, with the fall of Manila and Okinawa, the end was clearly in sight.

The end result of the Battle of Midway is well-known, but many of the critical details of the fighting itself are often glossed over, and in a sense that does a disservice to the Americans who won the battle. Today, it’s often forgotten that Japan had critical advantages in both numbers and combat experience. Japan undoubtedly had more experienced aircrew and supporting maintenance staff; the ability of the Japanese to assemble their strike forces so much faster is testimony to this, and it very well could have had a consequential impact on the battle itself. The sailors and airmen aboard the Japanese carriers were seen as elite, and they had struck the first blow at Pearl Harbor. Many had fought for years in China.

Japan also had the better aircraft. The Kate torpedo bombers outclassed the American Vindicators and even the brand new Avenger in every respect. The Zero fighters were also in a different league. Furthermore, all of the aircraft on Japan’s carriers outranged the American equivalents by quite a margin, and Japan’s ships were state of the art, fast and extremely well armed.

As if that wasn’t enough of an advantage, Japan had a distinct advantage in numbers, with four carriers against three, and a monopoly of battleships. It was only in the area of land-based aircraft on Midway that the U.

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