​          Introduction

           

           It's March 1942, and the war with the United States has gone so well for imperial Japan that its leaders don't know what to do next. Almost all of Japans prewar goals have been achieved: the Dutch East Indies and its vital oil rich islands of Java, Borneo, and Sumatra were under Japanese occupation, British Malaya and “Fortress Singapore” were also in Japanese hands with Japanese forces chasing the British army back to the border of India, and most of the Philiphines had fallen as well. The last remnants of American and Filipino forces still held out in Bataan, but they would surrender on April 9th, after which only the small island of Corregidor would still be in American hands, and their surrender was only a matter of time. The Japanese accomplished all of the above while only losing five destroyers, three patrol boats, seven minesweepers, and seven submarines, with zero losses to any of their capital ships. The conquest was so easy that many Japanese leaders would develop what was known as “victory disease”: an expectation that every new initiative and offensive would be an automatic triumph. While Japanese leadership was confident in continuing to conduct new initiatives against the United States, it was extremely unclear what those new initiatives should be, as while Japan meticulously planned out the first phase of the war, any further ideas of what to do next were very unclear.

 

       Japanese Ambitions

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The Japanese never actually thought that they would be able to conquer the mainland United States. Instead, they hoped to demonstrate to the United States that it would be just as impossible for America to conquer Japan. When the Americans and the allies eventually launched their counterattacks to retake their occupied territories, the Japanese planned to make it as bloody as possible to defeat them, so much so that America would have to come to the negotiating table and agree to a settlement that would allow Japan to keep their Southeast Asian conquests. However, such a plan was unrealistic, as America and the UK would accept nothing but unconditional surrender from the beginning of the war all the way to the end. To accomplish the stalemate that they hoped would trigger negotiations, the Japanese leadership decided it was necessary to establish a defensive perimeter around their new conquests. Initially, they assumed that the perimeter would run from the Marshall Islands in the south to Wake Island, and then the Kuriles in the north, but after their easy victories, they hoped to expand it so it could include either Australia, Hawaii, and the Aleutians, or even all three. Taking all this into account, by the end of march, Japanese Naval Leaders were considering separate initiatives at once, one to cut off communications between Hawaii and Austarlia by seizing Port Moresby and attacking Fiji and Samoa, and another to extend the empire’s defensive perimeter and secure its northern flank by taking the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

 

        Yamamoto's Plans

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However, none of this took Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto into account. Due to the success of his attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the string of Naval Victories that followed. Yamamoto had almost unprecedented authority over deciding Japans strategy for the second phase of the pacific war, and he had very different ideas in mind then the rest of the Japane admiralty on what to do next. Even from the beginning of the war, Yamamoto recognized that it was essential to eliminate the danger of these raids by sinking all the American carriers. Famously, the American carrier fleet was out at sea when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and their absence haunted Yamamoto ever since, as the American carrier fleet would frequently raid the Marshalls, Wake, Lae/Salamaua, and elsewhere. Furthermore, Yamamoto was personally afraid that so long as the American carriers were still afloat, there was a chance they could launch an air raid against Tokyo. No matter how unlikely such a prospect was, protection of the homeland and protecting the life and safety of the emperor was the Navy’s most important mission, and as such, the possibility alone was unacceptable and the American carriers must be destroyed. Yamamoto began to think about ways to destroy the American carriers, and a climactic and decisive carrier battle was his favoured way of choice to do so. Yamamoto also knew that most of the top brass of both the navy and the army opposed his plan for a decisive carrier battle, something that only made the challenge of getting his way more appealing, as while it was strategically important to destroy the American carriers, it was also as equally important to outwit his rivals within the Japanese military hierarchy. 

 

To achieve the destruction of the US carrier task force, it would be necessary to threaten an asset so important that the US Navy would be forced to commit most, if not all, of its carriers to defend it. Given US Admiral King's concern for the security of Fiji and Samoa, a Japanese thrust there might provoke the reaction he wanted. However, Yamamoto did not think they were important enough to ensure a decisive confrontation. He sought a decisive confrontation that was close to Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto held out hope that continued operations in the central Pacific could somehow lead to the occupation of Hawaii, which could then be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Americans and also be used as the final piece of the puzzle for the defensive perimeter of islands that surround their new conquests. These considerations led him to carefully examine the Hawaiian Archipelago. Since the army wouldn’t support an invasion of Hawaii, he decided to target the small two-island atoll of Midway, and the rest is history.

 

Midway Battleplan

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The plan composed by Yamamoto and his staff was as follows. The Kido Butai would approach Midway from the North and launch a bombing run on its airfield to destroy whatever planes were on the ground. Meanwhile, a surface force would approach midway from the west to attract the Americans' attention. The American carriers would then presumably sortie from Pearl Harbor to defend Midway from the bombings and the invasion force. While on the way, a group of Japanese submarines would inflict as much damage on them as possible as they headed towards Midway. Then, the Kido Butai would head south and engage. Presumably, the six Japanese carriers should have little trouble dealing with the three remaining American carriers, but as insurance, Yamamoto and several of the IJN's finest battleships would reinforce the Kido Butai to finish off any survivors. 

 

It seemed that the battle would be another crushing defeat for the US Navy, and the Japanese proceeded with their preparations, confident that they would finally be able to destroy those pesky US aircraft carriers. There was just one big problem: The United States had already figured out their plan.