Pacific Warfare
World War II was a horrific time in not only in the United States, but throughout the entire world. There were horrendous things going on in Europe at this time. World War II began in 1939. The Battle of Midway had a great impact on World War II. The Battle of Midway was a battle between America and Japan; Germany was not involved in this. By examining why Japan attempted to take control over Midway, Japan’s plan, and the battle itself, a connection can be made to The Battle of Midway and its effects on World War II. The Battle of Midway was a huge part in World War II.
The Battle of Midway began because of the Japanese. Japan wanted to gain more land in the 1930s. The Japanese needed to overpower lands and countries close to Japan to do this. But to overpower these countries, natural resources became a necessity to the Japanese. Japan needed a strong military to gain the natural resource, and they did not want the United States knowing or intruding in on their plan. Because of this, the Japanese believed that they needed to put an end to the U.S. Navy. Japan then bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (White 4). This attack did a large amount of damage, but the Japanese did not succeed in what they wanted to do, they wanted to destroy the American aricraft carriers. These aircraft carriers were not being stored in Pearl Harbor at that time. Just days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded two more significant stations in the Pacific Ocean. Many Americans were frustrated and discouraged because they thought the Japanese were impossible to defeat, but something surprising happened on April 18, 1942. Japan was attacked by the United States. The U.S. sent out sixteen B-25 bombers to attack...
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... world at this time, did not believe that the U.S. had a very strong military. A third effect the Battle of Midway had on World War II was that it stopped the Japanese from expanding their land. It could have been horrific if Japan became larger. Again, Japan attacked Midway because of an airplane attack that came from and aircraft carrier. The plan the Japanese came up with was simple but difficult to execute and did not work. Lastly American forces took out four aircraft carriers and won the Battle of Midway. The Battle of Midway was a large part in U.S. history and World War II.
Works Cited
Chrisp, Peter. The War in the Pacific. Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 2004. Print.
McGowen, Tom. The Battle of Midway. Danbury: Children's Press, 2001. Print.
White, Steve. The Battle of Midway. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2007. Print.
White, Steve. The Battle of Midway: the destruction of the Japanese fleet. New York: Rosen
McGee, William L. The Solomons campaigns, 1942-1943, from Gudalcanal to Bougainville : Pacific war turning point. Tiburon: BMC Publications, 2002.
“Pacific Situation Declared Eased by Battle of Midway.” Los Angeles Times 10 June 1942: 2 ProQuest. Web. 13 March 2014.
The Battle of Iwo Jima In the early morning of 19 February 1945, United States Marines assigned to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Division led the initial assault on the Japanese controlled island of Iwo Jima, with the objective of capturing and securing the island. This was the beginning of one of the fiercest and bloodiest and, more decisively, the most strategically important battles fought during World War II. After the dust had settled, and the smoke had cleared, the casualties and losses were astounding. 6,821 U.S. Marines along with 18,844 members of the Imperial Japanese Army had paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Cressman, Robert J.; et al. (1990). "A Glorious page in our history", Adm. Chester Nimitz, 1942: the Battle of Midway, 4–6 June 1942. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Pub. Co.ISBN 0-929521-40-4.
On December 7th 1941, Japanese Planes and submarines attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor. This event singlehandedly brought the U.S from its then neutral stance in World War Two to a fighting member of the “Allied Powers.” Pearl Harbor was the first of a long series of confrontations between the U.S and the Japanese in an effort to gain control of the Pacific. Unlike the “War in Europe” the Pacific strategy was dominated by naval and aerial battles, with the occasional land-based “Island Hopping” Campaign. As such, one of the most important factors in the war in the pacific was Fleet Size, the more ships a country could send to war, the better. Pearl Harbor was the Japanese’s way of trying to deal with the massive U.S Pacific fleet. However, Pearl Harbor was not the turning point of the war. After December 7th the United States began work on numerous technological developments which would ultimately help them in one of the most important battles of WWII, the largest naval confrontation of the war, The Battle of Midway. The battle, which took place from June 4th to June 7th , 1942 is widely considered the turning point of the Pacific Theater (James & Wells). Through the Post-Pearl Harbor desire for “Revenge” and various technological advantages including code breaking and radar, the U.S were able to outsmart the Japanese at Midway and ultimately win the battle, eventually leading to a victory in the Pacific.
World War II was one of the most important wars in history. It featured multiple countries at constant conflict with each other. There were several battles that occurred in this 12 year long war. An example of two of the battles would be the Battle of Britain in the European theater of war, and the Attack on Pearl Harbor in the Pacific theater of war. Only one of these wars saw victory, while the other caused great devastation to the American military.
The USS Midway is a decommissioned aircraft carrier that was in service with the US Navy from 1943 until 1992. The midway began the process to convert to a museum in September of 2003, and it was completed and opened to the public in June of 2004. The museum has exhibits showing history of past and present naval aircraft, and about life on a carrier in general. One particularly interesting exhibit is about the birthplace of naval aviation, which was in the bay where the Midway is anchored, and about how that area has evolved in the years since then.
Lawson, Robert L., and Barrett Tillman. U.S. Navy Air Combat: 1939-1946. Osceola, WI: MBI Pub., 2000. Print.
The execution of the principles of surprise and economy of force, made by the Americans in the Battle of Midway created an emphatic American victory when the preponderance of Japanese naval and air power indicated that events should have gone otherwise.
Pearl Harbor was one of the most motivational events in American history. From the very beginning Japan and America had their own social views and stereotypes about each other that a feud was bound to occur. On December 7, 1941 the nation of Japan sent out a fleet of their Imperial navy to attack the American held base on the island of Oahu. Leading this attack was Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who was a militarily strategic genius.” Yamamoto was planning on sinking the entire American Pacific fleet so the U.S navy could be put out of the war for the time being and the Japanese navy could continue their expansion in the Southwest Pacific.”(book)(Gordon Prange 136-138)
Leckie, Robert. Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II. New York: Penguin Group, 1995. Print.
The Battle of Midway came about when the Japanese wished to extend their Pacific control, broaching the idea to initiate a battle against the U.S. Navy. After the Japanese success at Pearl Harbor and their success coming to a standstill at Coral Sea one month earlier, Japanese commander, Admiral Yamamoto, had belief that it was necessary to hold a full battle at Midway as a deciding engagement. He thought that the Japanese had an increased chance of success, being that the U.S. had a certain disadvantage, only having two carriers since they had sunk U.S.S. Yorktown at Coral Sea, compared to the Japanese's 6 carriers, but the ship had been repaired. He also wanted to get revenge for the Doolittle Raid, an air attack on Tokyo performed by U.S. forces. To receive the Pacific gain Yamamoto so desired, he wanted to first attract a large portion of the U.S. fleet away from Midway, where they would attack, bringing the American Navy a fatal surprise. Yamamoto attempted to pull this idea through by launching an attack on the Alaskan Coast to drag the Americans North, then proceeding to attack on Midway. The Alaskan trap was just a waste of resources, the submarines sent to attack the U.S. were too late, the U.S. already knew of their plans. To the Japanese's surprise, U.S. forces were awaiting the Japanese arrival on June 4, 1942. Yamamoto had to con...
In the end, “Midway” clearly demonstrates the manner in which sea power is mediated by human variables, like leadership and strategy, as well as technological ones like SIGINT. With this in mind, the ultimate result of the battle is perhaps more attributable to these factors than it is to the actual nature of the naval assets deployed for the battle. Indeed, and while relative parity existed in terms of the nature of the two fleets, despite a Japanese quantitative advantage, these human
Chaos and continual disorder encompassed the people across the globe in the years prior to the declaration of war between the Axis and Allied powers in 1939. The Great Depression that had struck soon after the First World War left much of the world unemployed and desperate for relief. Nationalism swept through Germany in response to the terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I. China and Japan had been at war since Japanese troops invaded Manchuria in 1931. Germany, Italy, and Japan began multiple invasions and occupations of nearby countries. When they received no meaningful consequences for their aggressive actions, they felt emboldened and World War II began. In the midst of war and the growing totalitarian aggression, the United States passed several Neutrality Acts in an attempt to avoid involvement in another global war. Efforts to stay isolated from global conflict would lead to growing tensions between the main powers resulting in a rather inclusive war. After a vicious attack on their own home front staged by the Japanese, the United States catapulted into World War II. Over the course of the next six years the United States engage in continuous battles with Germany, Japan, and Italy on various fronts in Europe and the Pacific which necessitated a larger fighting force. Men like Raymond Barron Chavez courageously served as a naval serviceman during the war. Through his accounts on the Pearl Harbor attack and battles in the Pacific, we learn the first hand details of World War II. World War II reveals that leaving particular issues unresolved in terms of war will most likely lead to another one.