Which was more important the Battle of Midway or the Allies defeat of japan at Guadalcanal?

Answer 1

Midway. The Japanese lost four large fleet aircraft carriers at Midway, and were never able to make good the loss. The Japanese only completed one carrier during the rest of the war, and it was promptly sunk by a US submarine. After the carrier battles at Coral Sea and Midway, the Japanese were on the defensive for the rest of the war.

Guadalcanal was important strategically for denying the Japanese the use of the airfield they were building there, from which they could probably have interrupted the sea supply line between the US and Australia. The campaign stretched over six months and eventually drew in and chewed up many thousands of Japanese troops and dozens of ships (mostly smaller ones), and did provoke the last two of the four great carrier battles of 1942 (Eastern Solomons; Santa Cruz Islands). There would not be another great carrier battle until 1944. The campaign had much more symbolic importance though, as the first place US forces went over to the offensive since the beginning of the war. But the campaign itself involved really only a relatively small proportion of the US ground troops which eventually were deployed to the Pacific, and was only the first step in numerous island campaigns just to liberate the Solomon Islands. The importance of Guadalcanal was mostly symbolic and morale building, though it did provide a handy base of operations. The campaign was a learning experience and confidence builder, proving to the Allies that the Japanese, who had looked invincible, could be beaten. The island itself had strategic value only because the Japanese had selected it to host an airfield.