The Battle Off Midway Island

Given the enormous relative strength in resources: population, production and other natural resources, the United States would have eventually gained the upper hand against the Japanese Empire in World War II. Therefore, the great naval battle of Midway did not avert an American defeat. However, there is no question that the battle made a big difference in the end result. The Japanese losses were far more than simply the tonnage of their ships sunk; the greatest loss was in the highly trained crews on the ships as well as the pilots. Their greatest asset, their aircraft carriers and their crews, were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Part of the responsibility was the victory mentality that already permeated the Japanese naval command, but most of it was due to the American cracking of the Japanese code and the luck that so often makes the difference in such battles. In approximately one-half of an hour, the best carriers and crews of the Japanese navy were turned into junk and debris that was soon to sink into the waters of the Pacific. Due to an indecisive commander, the Japanese were trying to rapidly refit their planes and had gasoline hoses and ordinance scattered all over the flight decks of their carriers. When the American bombs hit, all of this was set off, preventing any realistic attempt at damage control. The battle off Midway Island is one of the most interesting battles of the entire Second World War, because it could easily have gone the other way. Taylor does an excellent job of setting the stage for the battle, providing the historical context as well as explaining the course of the battle. He also does something that should be more emphasized in historical accounts of the war. The early waves of American planes that attacked the Japanese ships were on near suicide missions, yet they pressed their attacks without hesitation. Historically, we talk almost exclusively about the Japanese Kamikaze pilots, while the American pilots did not aim to deliberately crash their planes into the Japanese ships, they were in many ways the first suicide pilots of the war. This is a battle that should be studied to death in American history, for one of the greatest of all "What if?" historical questions that can be asked is, "What if the Japanese had been the lucky ones at Midway and destroyed the American carriers?" It is very possible that the end result would have been a negotiated peace.