What was the importance of the Battle of Midway?

Answer 1

Midway, being, has never held much strategic importance to anyone. It happened in 1942 to be where some hundreds of US servicemen were posted, along with a couple dozen airplanes.

At that time, the Japanese were spoiling for a fight -- THE fight, the one that would pit the vaunted Imperial Japanese Navy against the US Pacific Fleet. The philosophy that guided Japanese military thinking throughout WWII held that the US could be defeated in a single massive naval battle. It seems shallow and foolish now, but belief in that "one battle" theory guided Japanese thinking nearly to the end of the war.

In early 1942, Midway was picked by the Japanese, because it was a good spot close enough to the US they could plan a land based air attack.

In the six months since Pearl Harbor, the world had learned the "new truth" about naval warfare. It's not the size of the guns, it's the number of airplanes. The ultimate paradox and the proof of that truth is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor itself! Carrier-based Japanese aircraft were used to destroy harbor-bound battleships on a massive scale. Ultimately, the Pacific war was shortened by at least a year precisely because the Japanese carriers at Pearl Harbor failed to sink the US carriers based there.

The key at Midway was intelligence, specifically US Naval Intelligence. The Navy had long before had some success decoding Japanese Navy codes. In the days leading up to the Midway battle, the Navy's decoders were able to determine that Midway would be attacked by the Japanese. The level of detail in the decodes was such that the Navy could plan and execute an "ambush" strategy aimed at catching the Japanese.

Books have been written about the battle, but the score goes like this. US shows up with 3 aircraft carriers, loses 1. Japan shows up with 4 aircraft carriers, loses 4.

The "importance" of the battle lies in the fact that it turned the war in the Pacific in favor of the US. The loss of four aircraft carriers essentially gutted the Japanese Navy as an offensive force. After Midway, Japanese power in the Pacific declined steadily, and the Japanese were defeated in every battle until the end of the war.

In addition, victory at Midway was a serious boost to morale in the US. The early weeks and months of WWII were filled with Horror stories of places like Corregidor, Bataan, Pearl Harbor. The Coral Sea battle showed that the US Navy could hold its own against the Japanese. But Midway was a clean, clear victory.

The Japanese armed forces did not win a major battle after Midway.