There is little doubt that the Japanese Navy suffered MAJOR Losses at Midway. What is being debated is how decisive were those losses. I have argued that Midway was the US Navy's turning point (of surface ships, especially carriers as well as submarines) in the Pacific, while Guadalcanal was the same for US Land forces (mostly Marines is what I read).
Let me offer another perspective (or opinion), as this sees the Battle from a larger viewpoint:
Some historians argue that Midway was not “decisive” because (with 20/20 hindsight) the ultimate victory over Japan was never in doubt, Midway or no Midway, but was merely the inevitable application of overwhelming U.S. industrial power. Although “what-if” scenarios are generally frowned upon by professional historians, had the battle resulted in a military defeat for the United States, President Roosevelt would have had an extremely difficult time maintaining his very politically unpopular “defeat Germany first” strategy. Imagine a very different world in which Nazi Germany had had time to develop an atomic bomb, or the Soviets had had time to overrun all of western Europe. British Prime Minister Churchill’s statement regarding the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, that “never had so much been owed by so many to so few” applied just as well to the few naval aviators who turned the tide at the Battle of Midway.
After the battle, the New York Times banner headline read “US Army Fliers Blast Two Jap Fleets at Midway.”
The headline in the Japan Times in Tokyo read “[Japanese] Navy Wins Epochal Victory.”
(Over the years I have read probably almost every book on Midway ever written, including the classics, Incredible Victory by Walter Lord, Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange, and, of course, Samuel Eliot Morison’s coverage of the battle. However, declassification of most World War II intelligence records in the 1970s and newer access to Japanese sources have significantly changed many of the conclusions of those earlier works. A relatively recent work, Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, is an extraordinary piece of research, telling the battle mostly from the Japanese side using many Japanese sources, and is probably the most comprehensive and accurate book on Midway I have read. For this reason most of the numbers for casualties, etc., that I use are from this book, although other sources may vary.)
Published: Fri Oct 25 15:13:15 EDT 2019
same source, at the start of the article:
Samuel J. Cox, Director NHHC
May 2017
**Revised and updated 28 October 2019**
“…the enemy lacks the will to fight…”
—Japanese Midway Operations Order, Commander’s Estimate of the Situation
The Battle of Midway (4–6 June 1942) was one of the most critical battles of World War II, and one of the most one-sided battles in all of history, although achieved at a very high cost for the U.S. aircraft and aircrew responsible for the victory. It was not, however, a “miracle.” At the decisive point of contact, it was four Japanese aircraft carriers (248 aircraft) and 20 escorts against three U.S. aircraft carriers (233 aircraft) and 25 escorts and an island airfield (127 aircraft = 360 total U.S. aircraft). The Japanese had some significant qualitative advantages, principally the ability to launch a massive integrated multi-carrier strike package rapidly, fighter maneuverability, and better torpedoes. However, the United States had some advantages as well, such as the element of surprise, radar, superior damage control, and the ability of U.S. aircraft to absorb damage. Although the total number of Japanese forces committed to the Midway operation (essentially, almost every operational ship in the Imperial Japanese Navy) far exceeded that of the U.S. Navy none but the four carriers were in a position to effect the outcome of the battle at the critical point and time. In terms of numbers and capabilities of the decisive weapon system of the battle, dive-bombers, the two sides were at rough parity.
Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto based his plan on inadequate intelligence and an inaccurate understanding of American intent, specifically the incorrect assumption that the “demoralized” Americans would have to be drawn out to fight. Therefore, Yamamoto’s force distribution was not optimized for mutual support, but rather for operational deception, to conceal the true extent of the forces employed so as to not prematurely spook the Americans into refusing to give battle. To a degree, his plan worked, in that Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz did not know that Yamamoto’s main body of battleships was trailing several hundred miles behind the Japanese carriers (with Yamamoto embarked on the new super-battleship Yamato), intent on ambushing U.S. forces that took the bait of the Midway invasion force. However, by doing so, the main body and other formations in the highly complex Japanese plan had no opportunity to engage U.S. forces in battle. Yamamoto was further hampered by a poorly planned and executed surveillance and reconnaissance effort. He had no idea the American carriers were already northeast of Midway waiting in ambush, and refused to consider the possibility that his plan might be compromised. (In pre-battle war games, the Japanese commander playing the U.S. “OPFOR” did exactly what Nimitz did, with results that were remarkably close to what actually happened, but his actions were ruled “impossible” by the game umpire, and the Japanese game losses were resurrected.)
Admiral Nimitz, on the other hand, had a very accurate understanding of Japanese intent, based on intelligence, of which code-breaking was only a part, albeit significant. Based on breaking the Japanese Navy general operating code (JN-25B) and the work of Commander Joseph Rochefort’s team in Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor, Nimitz knew that Midway was the objective of Japanese Operation “MI,” knew the approximate timing and approximate forces employed (four or five carriers), and knew that the concurrent Aleutian operation (“AL”) was not the Japanese main effort. Armed with this useful, but still somewhat vague code-breaking intelligence, Nimitz nevertheless insisted that his intelligence officer, Commander Edwin Layton, produce a more precise estimate of where the Japanese carriers would be located when first detected. Using all means of intelligence at his disposal, including his intimate understanding of Japanese thought process from his years of language training in Japan, Layton came up with an estimated bearing, range, and time from Midway Island (325 degrees, 175 nautical miles, at 0600 4 June 1942) that Admiral Nimitz later said was “five degrees, five miles, and five minutes off.” The actual location was a little father off than Nimitz stated, but not by much. Actually, the Japanese carriers arrived a day later than planned, but Layton’s estimate had accounted for weather and the Japanese plan had not (see attachment H-006-2 “ISR at Midway”). Nimitz’s decision, although audacious and risky, was not as much of a “desperate gamble” that some accounts have portrayed, but rather was completely in accord with the principle of “calculated risk” that guided Nimitz and other operational commanders during the battle.
Nimitz also later said that the battle was “essentially a victory of intelligence.” Up to a point, Nimitz’s statement is true.
https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/l ... 006-1.html
This source offers many insights, and offers what I see as a balanced and accurate report of losses for both Japanese and US forces. NOTE that this source uses intelligence reports from the Japanese.
NOTE these comments, again, same source:
The Battle of Midway was not won by “Citizen-Sailors.” It was won mostly by volunteer, professional naval officers and Sailors (the draft had only been in effect for a little over a year). The more senior officers and enlisted Sailors had endured many years of inadequate resources, misguided treaty limitations, low pay, slow promotions, the intense isolationist and anti-war backlash from the carnage of World War I, and a profound lack of appreciation and respect for U.S. military personnel in the interwar years by much of the U.S. population. Yet it was these volunteers, and a few draftees, in many cases armed with obsolete, inadequate weapons and hampered by fiscal constraints that severely curtailed realistic training, who held the line and paid with their lives to buy the time necessary for the United States to mobilize its massive resources in people and equipment that ultimately won the war. Compared to the Japanese, the American cost in blood was much less, but still profound: 307 Americans were killed in the battle. The bulk of the losses fell upon the aviators—Marines, Army Air Forces, but mostly Navy. Of the carrier aircraft that engaged the Japanese fleet on 4 June 1942, 40 percent were shot down, ditched due to battle damage or fuel exhaustion, or were no longer airworthy despite recovering on a carrier. Well over 150 U.S. aviators, most of them Navy, made the ultimate sacrifice in winning one of the greatest battles of all time. Although only one Medal of Honor (posthumous) was awarded in the battle (Captain Richard Fleming, USMC), approximately 170 Navy Crosses were awarded to Navy personnel, mostly aviators, many posthumously.
(...) also
Over 3,000 Japanese sailors were killed in the battle, most while valiantly trying to save their ships, including over 700 aircraft technicians/maintainers (a very limited skill in the Japanese navy). All 248 carrier aircraft were lost, most going down with their ships, along with several cruiser- and battleship-launched float planes. However, most Japanese pilots were rescued; only 36 were lost on the carriers and 74 in the air, mostly from Hiryu. Most of Japan’s Pearl Harbor–veteran pilots would survive Midway only to perish in the meat-grinder battle of attrition in the skies around Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands later in the year, where over 1,000 Japanese aircraft would be lost. It was not the loss of pilots at Midway that crippled Japan’s ability to wage offensive naval operations, but rather the loss of the most important Japanese strategic asset, the irreplaceable aircraft carriers. Only one new Japanese fleet carrier would make it into a major fleet action during the war, only to be sunk by a U.S. submarine in her first battle.
There is ALSO extensive reporting of how ineffective much of the US efforts were (including submarines, bombs, topedoes, and land based bombers), so I see this source as giving a frank and honest evaluation of the US efforts.
Here is another good article:
Battle of Midway: Japan’s Navy Suffers a Mortal Wound
The following article on the Battle of Midway is an excerpt from Barrett Tillman’s book On Wave and Wing: The 100 Year Quest to Perfect the Aircraft Carrier. It is available to order now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Battle of Midway was a decisive blow to Japan’s naval supremacy in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Between June 4-7, 1942, the United States Navy struck a blow to Japan’s fleet that was irreparable.bb(...)
For Japan, the Battle of Midway marked the fork in the victory road. Deprived of four carriers and 110 irreplaceable aircrew, Tokyo lost all its misplaced hope of forcing Washington into a settlement. While the Imperial Navy retained strong, capable players, it lacked America’s depth of talent to come off the bench. In football terms, Team America now had possession and would run the ball the length of the field. Chester Nimitz quipped that the epic battle put America “about Midway to victory.”
Additionally, the Battle of Midway removed all doubt that the aircraft carrier had supplanted the battleship as the dominant player on the world’s oceans.
I love the football analogy.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/battle-of-midway-2
Cite This Article
"Battle of Midway: Japan’s Navy Suffers a Mortal Wound" History on the Net
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....TRUMP HAS ALSO GOTTEN THE REST OF THE PERSIAN GULF TO HELP FIGHT IRAN...Although you can blame The British for all of this....They busted up the area after they took it from the Ottomans at the end of WW1...
ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)... 
