OP-20-G's Invasion Of The Navy In Melbourne, Melbourne

On the Japanese side of intelligence, Yamamoto believed to have the element of surprise at Midway, which was thought to draw the Americans out of Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto had numerical naval superiority in the Pacific to defeat the Americans at sea but remained unaware that the code breakers ascertained its operational and strategic plan to attack at Midway. Spector argues that Japanese submarines knew the American forces were planning something at Pearl Harbor, but the intelligence was never passed on to Yamamoto. Additionally, Yamamoto believed that two of the American carriers were sunk at Coral Sea, which the Yorktown was hastily being repaired in Pearl Harbor. In reality, the Japanese had no idea where the American fleet or carriers were leading up to the Battle of Midway.

The Japanese planned to take out the coasts and island that the American Navy had. The Japanese Navy would try a mainland invasion of the United States if they could take the Midway Island. First they would probably take Hawaii then they would take the Panama Canal and then after that the Japanese would invade San Fransisco Bay then there would be a negotiation between the United States and Japan would gain all the land gained by the Japanese during the Pacific Campaign.

The United States of America has not always been the world superpower that it is today. The same goes for its Navy. In the first several years of existence, the United States Navy was not a formidable fighting force. The young nation was hesitant to invest in a navy for many reasons, one of them being to prevent provoking the world powers of the time, France and Britain. On top of that, navies were very expensive to build and required a significant amount of resources to maintain, which the U.S. did not have at the time. To say that the United States Navy was ill prepared for war would be a dramatic understatement. The U.S. had a total of fifteen ships in its entire naval fleet compared to the might of the Royal Navy which possessed over six hundred warships. Even with the odds stacked against the U.S., President Madison declared war on 18 JUN 1812. The lack of size and power of the navy at the time would make it extremely difficult to satisfy the needs of the newly founded nation.

By the end of 1941 Japan had control of most of the Pacific theater. It was not until after the attack on Pearl Harbor that the United States formally declared war on the Axis Powers. By the beginning of 1942, the United States Navy, switched from being in a defensive position to an offensive position and took the fight to the Japanese military in the Pacific. The Battle of Midway is considered the turning point in the Pacific Theater during WWII. However, the Battle of Midway may not have happened as it did if it were not for the men who tirelessly worked to break the Japanese JN-25 code. The ability to decipher the encrypted Japanese messages gave the United States Navy the upper hand in the Pacific theater and by the end of the war the Japanese

The Battle of the Philippine Sea was an engagement between the United States Pacific Fleet and the Japanese navy in World War II. This Battle occurred started on June 19 and ended on June 20 in 1944. The Japanese goal at the very beginning of this conflict was to discourage American forces by incurring such great damage to the military that the public majority would become weary of the war and discontinue its support of the war. The loss of support from the public would then cause the US Government to retract its forces from Japan.( Willmott, H.P. June 1944. New York, NY: Blandford Press, 1984. ISBN 0-7137-1446-8) Willmott 1984, p. 143.)

In January 1941, reports were received that Japan might attack Pearl Harbor but military officials ignored these reports. They considered attacks on the Philippines and other European countries to be more likely, underestimating Japan’s ability to conceal preparations for such an operation. Due to the success of the cryptanalysis machine called, Magic, American leaders started breaking Japanese military operational codes. The codes that were deciphered showed Japan was likely to take some type of military action (Irive). At that time, Japan had only a 12-month supply of petroleum to fuel its economy and war operations left. So the U.S. anticipated Japan would act quickly! The only questions that could not be answered were when and where (Woods). Pearl Harbor had been a major naval base since before 1898. In early

Despite all the success Japan had early in the war, they did not do as much damage to the United States Pacific fleet as they would have like to have done. This gave America a false sense of security at the time when Japan was preparing to take stronger action. Rear Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plan was to draw in the remaining American ships into an area where they could be attacked and destroyed by a much greater number of Japanese vessels. Admiral Yamamoto thought that if Japan captured valuable territory like the Midway Islands that the United States could not afford to give up, he could destroy the remaining American ships with ease because the Americans would have no supply chain.

On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Task Force comprised of six aircraft carriers. A support force, which included two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, three submarines, escorted it and eight oil supply ships, began their trek to Hawaii. They must travel four thousand miles across open sea and remain undetected by the UNITED STATES Forces. (Wisniewski 20) The UNITED STATES Military knew a surprise attack by Japan was possible and they thought they were prepared. Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the commanders of the UNITED STATES Naval and Army forces in Hawaii, respectively, had regularly scheduled training exercises and had taken many precautions to avert disaster. (Pearl Harbor’s History, Filmstrip)

A series of Japanese codes broken by the U.S. Crytologist in 1920 revealed the country preparation for war, after decoding another of message that orders a ship to be position in Pearl Harbor (Glick). Before the raid Britain had broken Japanese codes and had key clues (Glick). They broke Japan’s diplomatic code; American officials knew about the Japan’s Embassy order to destroy its codes machines (Pearl Harbor). On October 9, 1941 the War Department decoded a Tokyo-to-Honolulu dispatch instructing the consul General to divide Pearl Harbor into five areas and to tell the exact location of American ship in that area (Perloff). The Dutch army decoded a dispatch forecasting attacks on four areas including Hawaii (Perloff). There were a lot of different Japanese codes that were cracked, warning of the Japanese going to attack on Pearl Harbor.

Japan’s wanted to attack Midway to gain power in the Pacific Ocean and to eliminate the United States Navy for a long time. Since the U.S. suffered a major defeat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, felt he could take advantage of the U.S. since they were weak in his mind (Hone). Japan was fixated on settling their differences with the U.S., so they began risking large naval units in Pacific battles. An article posted in the Los Angeles Time, “Japs Risk Large Naval Units in Blows at U.S.” says, “For the sixth time in six months Japan made a deadly bid to capture the mastery of the Pacific, and for the sixth time she has failed after paying a price that is fast becoming prohibitive,” (Symonds). Posted just after the Battle of Midway it showed that the Japanese had been planning this.

Prior to the upcoming Coral Sea battle, a number of Japanese military messages had been intercepted by the U.S. Navy signals intelligence unit. The first, dated March 28, 1942, was encoded as stating “The objective of MO will be first to restrict the enemy fleet movements and will be accomplished by means of attacks on the north coast of Australia.” (“Battle of the Coral Sea”) Subsequent messages were intercepted that provided allied forces with updated details concerning IJN fleet progress, as well as elements of IJN plans that included battleship and carrier logistics. This resulted in the U.S. Navy’s deployment of a cotillion of numerous warships and support craft, and also the carriers Lexington and Yorktown (“Battle of the Coral Seas”). In the upcoming battle, these ships would do battle against a superior IJN force comprised of far more battleships, submarines and support craft, as well as aircraft carriers.

In the beginning of war, Japanese victory in Pacific terrified West Cost Americans. Partial victory for Americans appeared when Japanese capital Tokyo was bombed. It was less of a material loss but huge in terms of psychological attack. It was followed by the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942 and after that the decisive Battle of Midway Island took place. U.S. aircraft carriers destroyed three out of four Japanese carriers that sabotaged their further plans of invasion and they adopted a defensive strategy.

Before their attack on Midway Island, the Japanese had to take over Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in early May of 1942. Yamamoto planned the Battle of the Coral Sea with hopes of gaining new islands in the Pacific Ocean that would aid the Japanese during its attack on Midway

Typical of Japanese naval planning during the Second World War, Yamamoto's battle plan was quite complex.[15] Additionally, his designs were predicated on optimistic intelligence information suggesting USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, forming Task Force 16, were the only carriers available to the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time. USS Lexington had been sunk and USS Yorktown severely damaged (and believed by the Japanese to have been sunk) at the Battle of the Coral Sea just a month earlier. The Japanese were also aware that USS Saratoga was undergoing repairs on the West Coast after taking torpedo damage from a submarine.

It was also believed that if the Japanese were able to complete this airfield that it would be too advantageous for them and would also aid in invading Port Moresby on the Western coast of New Guinea.