The entire course of the war in the Pacific changed when the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered a cataclysmic loss at the Battle of Midway. Japan had won victory after victory since the annihilation of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, but that would all change on June 4th, 1942 near Midway Island.
By June 1942 the Japanese Empire controlled 20 million square miles of real estate and ocean. Imperial Japan was looking to add Midway Island to that total. Japanese control of Midway Island would have made the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor untenable and could have forced the US Pacific Fleet back 2500 miles to San Diego opening up Hawaii to potential Japanese invasion.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz sent every available U.S. ship(small in comparison to the Japanese strike and invasion force) to set up the greatest ambush in U.S. naval history. U.S. Naval intelligence had cracked the Japanese code and the U.S. carriers would try and ambush the FOUR Japanese fleet aircraft carriers from the blindside.
Within a five minute window the Douglas Dauntless SBD dive bombers(pictured above) found the Japanese carriers and the strength of the Imperial Japanese Navy was shattered; three of the four Japanese aircraft carriers were doomed; the fourth and final Japanese carrier was sunk in a follow up strike in late afternoon on June 4th, 1942.
In one cataclysmic blow Japan had lost FOUR of their six big fleet aircraft carriers at the Battle of Midway; and most of their best pilots and aircrews were lost as well !!!
The tide of the Pacific War had changed and the U.S. Navy had leveled the playing field for the moment. The Japanese abandoned their invasion of Midway Island.
The U.S. still needed to buy time till the might of the U.S. industry could send them the cruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers that were started in the late 1930's but NOT yet finished!
The U.S.S. Enterprise was credited with sinking the two largest Japanese carriers and shared in the destruction of a third carrier. The Enterprise would be the sole remaining aircraft carrier in the Pacific as the U.S. Navy suffered horrific losses in protecting the U.S. Marines as they struggled to keep the malaria infested island of Guadalcanal later in the fall of 1942 until February of 1943.
The road to Tokyo would be a long and bloody one, but it was all made possible by the U.S. naval victory at the Battle of Midway on June 4-6 in 1942.
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