Was Midway that decisive?

Question

Many historians say that the Battle of Midway was the turning point of WWII for Japan. After that, they could never hope to win. I say that even if they had won the battle, they would still have lost due to American industrial capacity. What do you think?

Answer 1

The Japanese did not have the industrial resources to replace their carriers and by the Battle of Midway, the aircraft carrier had proven itself as the new main capital ship of the navy.

We stopped the Japanese advance at the Battle of Coral Sea a few weeks earlier. Coral Sea was the first naval battle in history where the two opposing fleets did not come within sight of each other. This was the battle where the aircraft carrier came into its own. The Battle of Coral Sea was a marginal victory of the Japanese, but it was a tactical victory for the United States. The USS Lexington was lost, and the USS Yorktown was badly damaged -- but the Japanese advance in the Pacific was stopped.

The Battle of Midway was where the United States destroyed the cream of Japanese Naval aviation. Not only did the Japanese lose 4 carriers, but they also lost a sizeable number of their most experienced pilots and air crew. The loss of the Japanese fliers was probably more significant than the loss of the carriers.

What gave us the advantage at Midway was the fact that we had broken the JN-25 cipher (not the Purple cipher, which was used by the diplomatic corps). We knew the Japanese were going to attack Midway. The Japanese also had a much larger fleet, that made it easier for the patrol planes to find.

The Japanese did not expect the U.S fleet to be in place. Their hope was that they could capture Midway and then force the U.S. fleet to come out where their land and sea based planes could then destory what was left of the U.S. fleet. The Japanese were caught totally off guard when the U.S. carrier based squadrons attacked.

The reason Midway is seen as the turning point in the war in the Pacific is that the Japanese lost 4 main carriers, more than 250 planes, and more than 200 of their most experienced pilots. These were losses the Japanese could not replace.

Had the Japanese succeeded at Midway, they would have had a forward base, they would have sunk the remaining Pacific fleet carriers, and there would have been nothing to stop them from taking Hawaii. The United States would have been forced to pull what was left of the fleet back to the West Coast.

It is true that we could have moved naval assets from the Atlantic Fleet back into the Pacific, but by the time they could have been redeployed, the Japanese would have established a firm hold on the Pacific. There are only 3 routes from the Atlantic into the Pacific: arround Cape Horn, through the Panama Canal, or arround the Cape of Good Hope through the Indian Ocean. There would only have been limited assets avaialble. Of carriers, all that would have been left were the USS Saratoga, USS Ranger, and USS Wasp. (The U.S. only had 8 carriers at the beginning of the war. The first new carrier to join the fleet, USS Essex, wasn't commissioned until 31 December 1942.)

The Japanese goal was not to win a war against the United States, but to stop the United States from interfering with Japanese war efforts in Asia and the Pacific. They did not believe the Uninted States would be willing to fight a protacted war, and by destroying the Pacific Fleet and forcing the United States to retreat back to the Pacific Coast of the U.S. mainland, their hope was that the U.S. would negotiate an early peace and remain out of the rest of the war.

The Japanese knew that they had to acheive victory over the United States in 1942. It is possible that had their battle plans succeeded, the United States would have entered into peace negotiations with the Japanese in 1942 so that we could focus our attention on the war with Germany. What is ironic is that we had no reason to go to war with Germany -- they never attacked us. It was Germany that declared war on the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that gave the United States the reason it needed to enter into the European Theater.

Had the Japanese succeeded in their initial strategy and brought the United States to the negotiating table in 1942, I think it is doubtful that such negotiations would have resulted in a peace treatry. The Japanese leadership was far too agressive, and I think would have once again tried to force the point militarily like they did on 7 December 1941. Also, as the tide of war started turning in the European Theater, I believe Britian would have started bringing pressure on the United States to reenter the war against Japan because Britian would have been facing the brunt of the Japanese Navy throughout 1942 and into 1943.

So even had the Japanese won the Battle of Midway, I believe all they would have done is delay their inevitable defeat. I do not believe the United States would have entered into peace negotiations with the Japanese, there was way too much anger in the American people in the wake of Pearl Harbor. The war's end would have been delayed by as much as a year because we would have had to start our counter attack from the West Coast instead of from Hawaii and we probably would not have been able to do that until early 1943.

Germany would still have been defeated mid 1945 and Japan would ultimately have been defeated, probably in early 1946.

Answer 2

Certainly Japan could have won at Midway, and lost the war.

But I think you have to consider the meaning of the phrase "turning point", and its context.

I think it is pretty well accepted that many senior Japanese planners knew that Japan could not win a war with the United States, but that Japan's expansionist goals in the Pacific would lead to eventual, if not inevitable, conflict with the U.S.

Japan, therefore, sought to deliver a quick knock-out blow to the US Navy operating in the Pacific - to eliminate the capacity to effectively fight, if not the will.

That is what Pearl Harbor was all about.

And I think it is also well accepted that the failure of the Japanese to catch the US carriers at Pearl was significant. Midway gave the Japanese to finish the job, if you will, left incomplete at Pearl.

Two things happened at Midway - Japan failed to destroy the American carrier force, and Japan suffered serious carrier losses of its own.

Not only was the knockout blow not delivered, but Japan was no longer in the position where it could do so. And the loss at Midway put Japan on the defensive against the US, and hampered operations elsewhere.

I think that constitutes a decisive turning point.

I suppose another view of turning point, is that point of inflection representing the highwater mark. I think a strong argument can be made that Japan's highwater mark in the war came in the months leading up to the battle at Midway. And the tide started reversing after the battle.

Answer 3

It's hard to tell how a Japanese victory at Midway would have effected the war. I suppose that if it had been successful, an invasion of Hawai'i would likely have been next, and I think that Japan had the personnel and firepower to take over Oahu. That might have at least led to a stalemate as the US would most likely not have any Pacific outpost from which they could conduct military operations. Since a stalemate was really Japan's only hope of victory (they had no chance of invading North America), it might have forced the US to negotiate an end to the Pacific War. Thus, it was definitely a turning point.

The Battle of Midway probably should have been a Japanese victory as they had the larger fleet. However, the US had the advantage of foreknowledge thanks to cryptanalysis of the Japanese PURPLE cipher. This allowed the US to have a tactical advantage over the Japanese fleet. I would then suggest that the true turning point was found in cracking Japan's main code system, much like Britain's cracking of Germany's Enigma code was decisive in Europe.

Answer 4

You are probably right that the US would have won the war, even if they had lost at Midway.

What makes that battle so decisive is that the Japanese lost their invincibility. Up until Midway Japan had won all naval battles and was on the offensive. They had even started to bomb Darwin in Northern Australia!

We can only imagine the moral boost the allies in the Pacific must have got when they realised that the Japanese could be beated.
That is perhaps much more important than the 4 Japanese aircraft carriers which were sunk in the battle.

Answer 5

You're quite correct. The battle of Midway was decisive only from the Japanese point of view. Because they lost three aircraft carriers in that battle, the Japanese empire stopped growing. After Midway, the Japanese empire began to shrink. So in that sense it was the decisive turning point between the early days of the war when the empire grew; and afterward, when it began to shrink.

But you're quite right. If the Japanese had won the battle, their fate was still sealed by America's superior technology, manufacturing capabilities, and scientists (the atomic bomb). A Japanese victory might have prolonged the war, but the outcome would have been the same.

Congrats on a good question.

Answer 6

Midway would have effected the war. I suppose that if it had been successful, an invasion of Hawai'i would likely have been next, and I think that Japan had the personnel and firepower to take over Oahu. That might have at least led to a stalemate as the US would most likely not have any Pacific outpost from which they could conduct military operations. Since a stalemate was really Japan's only hope of victory (they had no chance of invading North America), it might have forced the US to negotiate an end to the Pacific War. Thus, it was definitely a turning point.

Answer 7

Maybe - but it would have taken much longer. If we had lost all three aircraft carrier at the Battle of Midway it would have required the US to divert more the US Fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific (taking away needed surface ships away from hunting U-Boats threating US shipping sending troops and supplies to the European theatre for uses by ourselves and our allies) and we would not have be able to launch offensive actions against the Japanese forces in Pacific because Aircraft carrier superiority would have fallen to the hands to the Japanese. After the attack at Pearl Harbor the Japanese possessed a great advange over the US in large capital ships. Without our Carriers to kept that threat at bay and the fact that most of the Iowa Class of Battleship were not ready for combat until 1944 - the length of the war would have been greatly increase which would have led to the Nazis have more time to develop there "super weapons." There could have been an even bloody ending to WW2 than already did occur.

Answer 8

At that point any battle the Japanese lost was a psychological blow to them. The Aussies, Brits, the New Zealanders and others did a good job.

Answer 9

I always believed that it was more because of its location than for any other reason. Maybe it should be seen as a crucial stopping point for the Allied 'island hopping' strategy that was so vital when aircraft range and mid-air refueling were not advanced enough or not available.

Answer 10

In the sense that it was the last major Japanese offensive in the Pacific...and that they were on the defensive for the rest of the War...it was the turning point.