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Sea Power In Ww2

Decent Essays

The Battle of Midway affected the world in many ways and how sea power would affect the Second World War. Sea power and strategy would affect the world in just a span of a couple of days during the battle of midway. We had a severe disadvantage, so we used the power of our carriers and luck to change history in a moment. McClusky and Waldron attacked miraculously at the same time and destroyed the Kido Butai. We were losing the war, and we failed on many attempts to win the battle early, but it was not working out. Europe was getting ravished and if we lost this battle if would essentially affect the outcome of the war. It led America to spend more resources on the Europe side of the war, and let Nimitz to create a force and lead his forces …show more content…

The Japanese had the edge in this battle with their superior technology. The Japanese’s planes were stronger, and the Japanese zeroes were faster, more maneuverable, and weighed less. However, if there were hit the driver would most likely die because there was no protection for the pilot. The Japanese had a stronger and larger fleet, the Kido Butai, thought to have 6 carriers, but two of them were in Japan for maintenance from earlier battles. They had 4 carriers the Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu they had more destroyers, and a much stronger squadron of planes. During the battle of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese thought they had sunk four of the air craft carriers, but they had only sunk two of them (Decision 219). The Japanese had been on a rampage in the Pacific and thought they had the battle in the bag, they thought they destroyed the USS Yorktown at Pearl Harbor, but they only damaged it, and they didn’t hurt the shipyards their enough. This event led to more ships to come from Hawaii later on in the war to help the U.S eventually make their way to Japan itself. The Japanese had the advantage in skill and practice. They had pilots and officers that had led their battalion of ships throughout the pacific to make an empire, or they were on their way to take over the …show more content…

The Japanese sent subs to Dutch Harbor. They sent some of their forces to a Dutch Harbor where a shipyard was and some minor forces were. They had 10 task forces that were sent to midway, and the carriers were in the back. Before the battle had started, the Japanese stopped communication between each other, they stopped the radio dialog between each other to stop the chances of the Americans on hearing their plans. There was a fog of war that was over the Japanese when they started this, they did not help each other, if the Americans mobilized to strike. The Americans made a huge stride to victory when they figured out the messages from the Japanese commander “Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Japanese fleet commander, chose to invade a target relatively close to Pearl Harbor to draw out the American fleet, calculating that when the United States began its counterattack, the Japanese would be prepared to crush them. Instead, an American intelligence breakthrough–the solving of the Japanese fleet codes–enabled Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to understand the exact Japanese plans. Nimitz placed available U.S. carriers in position to surprise the Japanese moving up for their preparatory air strikes on Midway Island itself”(John Prados).

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