What strategic, tactical, and operational factors/decisions affected the outcome of the Battle of Midway?

Question

Sources where answers are found would be appreciated. Thank you for your time. I truly appreciate it.

Answer 1

The Pacific war is best described as island hopping. Key islands, if taken, will allow you to moor and repair your fleet or launch air attacks against land targets and shipping. Midway was a major prize and would have allowed Japan a great deal of liberty within the Pacific region.

Unfortunatly, Island hopping is linea. As a tactitician, all that you have to do is join the dots. It also helps if your code breaking lets you know what is going to happen ahead of time.

As well as land based defences, America also sent a carrier force. This meant that, as well as the defences on the ground, which had been strengthened, the Japanese task force also had to contend with more fighters than it had been expecting.

The location of the task forces were not known and so both fleets began to search for the other.

This was a carier battle, as the great battle ships did not even see each other. At the end of the engagement, Japan had lost its carrier fleet, all but ending future offencive opperations within the region. Also, due to the American production capability, they could replace thier losses easier than Japan could.

Luck

Answer 2

1) The Americans had broken the Jap code and knew an attack on Midway was coming.
2) The Americans sent out their carrier fleet early and got ahead of the Japanese sub picket line. They were then able to ambush the Japanese.
3) The Americans were able to find the Japanese fleet first, and get their planes into the air from Midway before the attack- even to launch a bomber attack first (which did no damage). The Japanese then had to try and send a second attack to get the planes.
4) The American carriers were able to find the Japanese carriers first. They launched first.
5) The Japanese finally detected one American carrier. They were in the middle of reloading planes to attack the airfield at Midway. They had to stop and start to rearm for ship attack.
6) The American planes did not arrive all at once. The torpedo planes got there first, and did not wait for the dive bombers to arrive, but went right in. The Jap air cover and anti air defense shot them all down- but then the fighters were all down at sea level when the American dive bombers arrived and attacked.
7) With planes reloading and refueling on deck, the dive bombers made hits that caused massive fires and secondary explosions which destoryed the enemy carriers.

Answer 3

there is so much written on the Battle of Midway, all you have to do is enter that into search and get a lot of material where you can draw your own conclusions.Here's some stuff to look for.

Climactic Battle
Code Breaking
Repair facilities at Pearl Harbor
Capt Miles Browning
The attack of the Devastators