Louis J Sheehan 110907.10957

The Battle of Midway was a naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It took place from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, about five months after the Japanese capture of Wake Island, and six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor that had led to a formal state of war between the United States and Japan. During the battle, the United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll, losing one aircraft carrier and one destroyer, while destroying four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser.
The battle was a decisive victory for the Americans, widely regarded as the most important naval engagement of the Pacific Campaign of World War II.[2] The battle permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), particularly through the loss of over 200 naval aviators.[3] Both nations sustained losses in the battle, but Japan, industrially outstripped by America, was unable to reconstitute its naval forces while the American shipbuilding program provided quick replacements. By 1942 the United States was three years[citation needed] into a massive ship building program that sought to expand the Navy to a size superior to Japan's. As a result of Midway, the Japanese were faced with naval inferiority within months as this created a steady flow of aircraft carriers and other ships of the line. Strategically, the U.S. Navy was able to seize the initiative in the Pacific and go on the offensive. Louis J Sheehan Esquire
The Japanese plan of attack was to lure America's remaining carriers into a trap and sink them.[4] The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll to extend Japan's defensive perimeter farther from its home islands. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa, as well as an invasion of Hawaii.[5]
The Midway operation, like the attack on Pearl Harbor, was not part of a campaign for the conquest of the United States, but was aimed at its elimination as a strategic Pacific power, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was also hoped another defeat would force the U.S. to negotiate an end to the Pacific War with conditions favorable for Japan.[6]