“...The dry-dock, repair shops, and tank farm were intact. The carriers, their escorts, and the submarines stood ready to take the offensive...”
And right there you see, even through the Havoc that Japanese naval air assets DID create, the mistake that they made.
There’s an amazing book that was published some years ago - “Descent into Darkness” - that details the salavage divers and their efforts to refloat and repair the battleships. Oklahoma was pulled right-side up by those same facilities that were not destroyed.
Worth the read if you can find it.
Also, breaking their codes and being able to read the Japs’ mail helped big time.
I look at it as simply giving us something of a fighting chance. The Japanese had a vastly superior force, both numerically and qualitatively. In such a match up, good intel doesn't usually matter.
Remember that we did not win because of the element of surprise. Hours passed without a single hit on the Japanese. We won because brave men continued to press the attack into the jaws of death, from which few of their compatriots were returning.
It is said that the Japanese were overconfident. I don't think so. They had every right to be very confident and expectant of victory. They destroyed most everything that came at them. Japanese aircraft and flyers were world class. But the Americans chose to fight to the death to stop the Japanese, and that shear tenacity was enough to force an opening and deliver victory.
In the annals of warfare, Midway is not a matter of the lucky arrow, but of the inexplicably tenacious warriors.
I have that book, but just haven’t gotten around to reading it.