The Confrontation Between Japan And The United States

The Japanese wanted and needed the island at Midway to continue their Pacific campaign only by capturing Midway Island. If the United States had not repealed the Midway attack then the Japanese would have taken out many American Naval bases and many American carriers.

Sections 2: Investigation The Battle of Midway was a drastic war between the United States and Japan on the small island of Midway, Atoll. In the hot, bright summer of June, 1942 had become a grim, dark period. A battle that brought tides of the attack on both sides due to their past actions such as, when Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and now wanted to get more territorial land. And on the other hand America’s attack on Tokyo.

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

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.

……….The Battle of Midway was one of the most important battles of World War II. It was the turning point of the war in the Pacific between the United States and Japan. One of Japan’s main goals during WWII was to remove the United States as a Pacific power in order to gain territory in East Asia. The Japanese formulated a plan to sneak up on the U.S. forces. However, American code breakers had intercepted a number of Japanese transmissions.

"Midway thrust the warlords back on their heels, caused their ambitious plans..........to be canceled, and forced on them an unexpected, unwelcome, defensive role". -Samuel Elliot Morison, the United States Navy's official historian of World War II, on the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The danger of Japanese power in the Pacific lingered over the heads of the Americans and endangered the safety of their homeland in the years from 1903 to 1942. That power lasted until the Japanese made the mistake of attacking the island of Midway in the second great carrier battle of the war. At 4:30 in the morning on June 4, 1942, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Midway in an attempt to destroy their aircraft carriers that escaped Pearl

In Peter Duus’ Japanese Discovery of America, the author shows the learning experience that Japan went through in order to become one of the strongest countries in the early 20th century. From 1797 when the first American ship arrived in Japan, to 1879 when President Grant visited the Meiji emperor, Japan, not one of the strongest countries economically and militarily at the time, had interactions with multiple countries that included Russia, England and Portugal. However, Japan’s Confucianism belief and the development of the Tokaido Road served as roots for their quick rise to modernization. Even though multiple countries were cooperating with Japan, the relations with the United States proved to be the most

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.

Before America entered WWII, the U.S. and Japan were trading partners. However, Japan had been involved in the Pacific Theater of WWII, conquering land across Asia and the Pacific Ocean, before the U.S. joined the war. As a result, American resources had aided Japan in imperializing other nations. Critical of America’s relationship with Japan, Dr. Seuss released a political cartoon, shown above. In the cartoon, a man wearing a sweater labeled “Japan” shops at a store run by a bird, which dons a hat with a U.S. flag design. The Japanese man orders “kerosene, some excelsior and a blow torch”, claiming his mother wishes to “bake a cake” (Seuss, “Gimme some kerosene, some excelsior and a blow torch. Ma wants to bake a cake”). Using these details,

The date of the battle of midway was June 3,1942 to June 7,1942 the battle lasted a total of 4 days and resulted in thousand of casualties on each side. The island of midway is a small island in the middle of the pacific ocean that was an American Naval base. The officers in charge of the American side were Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond Spruance. The Japanese were Isoroku Yamamoto, Nobutake Kondo, and Chuichi Nagumo. The number of American troops at midway was in the thousands with the Japanese following with around the same amount of troops.

Who knows if we would have beaten the Japanese had we not gained Iwo Jima? Americans needed a naval base and the Japanese island of Iwo Jima had two. The Japanese were controlling the air, and we needed a base to send our naval aircraft carriers out to sea in order to take down the Imperial Japanese Air Force. Plus, Iwo Jima being very close to Japan was of “great strategic importance.”

Without it, no one would ever be successful. The Japanese Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, had planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and was responsible for planning Operation Midway. He was very influential for the Japanese, as he did think that his strategy of sending separate groups to drag out the Americans in order to leave an opening to attack their base would work. However, his fault was not taking caution to protect his plans from the American code-breakers. After his plan began to fail, all hope was lost for the Japanese.

The Battle of Midway raged in 1942 from June 3 through June 7. At the time, the Americans were losing the war against the Japanese. All hope seemed to be lost, until the United States won the battle, much to the surprise of the Japanese. Without America winning the battle, The Japanese would have occupied Hawaii, which would have given them a base between North America and Asia, and the Japanese would start their island hopping campaign. The Americans won the battle of Midway thanks to the U.S. intelligence deciphering codes from the Japanese, the failure of Japan not winning the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the failure of Japanese to destroy the fuel storage facilities at Pearl Harbor. Winning the battle, not only led to winning the war, but it also gave American soldiers a sense of hope and and gave a rise to their

The new technology can make the difference in the results of the battle. The Midway battle was a strategy for the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto. He plans to destroy midway and part of America's Pacific Fleet. Yamamoto next step was to attack Hawaii and towards the U.S. for negotiating for peace. He was dividing the force to plan the attack. Admiral Nimitz in charge uses a new Ultra intelligence that discloses the plans of Yamamoto. He prepares for the incoming attack from the Japanese's with Rear-Admiral Spruance. The first attack on Midway on 3 June, by the bombers, was ineffective. The next day attack left general damage. When Nagumo aircraft's return to rearm, Spruance attacks them in a long range of U.S. torpedo planes. Most of the U.S. planes