what was more significant was the IJN carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku were damaged by our aircraft. The Japanese determined that the damage to the ships was to significant to be done locally. They ordered the ships back to Japan for repairs.
These ships were struck from the Midway operation because they were still being repaired. Had this not happened, The IJN would have been able to commit 6 carriers to the Midway battle instead 4.
Yes Very important.
I sometime wonder about counter-factuals if that would have happened. One possibility is the entire Japanese air fleet, or say 5 of 6 might have been destroyed at Midway yet the 2 extra carriers of strength might have in return destroyed the entire USN aircraft carrier fleet of 3. Say EIGHT carriers sank in one titanic bloody battle!
Such a scenario would have been very interesting in the short term as this would have given advantage to Japanese Cruiser and Destroyer forces especially at night. While US land based AirPower would have became even more important. Perhaps resulting in more Guadalcanal like scenarios?
Of course in the long run it would have helped us as our industrial capacity would have been able to replace losses a lot faster.
PS
A more likely result would have been heavy losses on both sides say 4 of their to all 3 of ours…also an interesting counter-factual to speculate on.
I think we cannot minimize the factor of our surprise counterattack at Midway. Japan was confident that there would be no American carriers at Midway; they stated their concern was making the runways at Midway impossible to launch a counter attack.
To the best of my knowledge, the Japanese only realized late in the Battle of Midway that there had to be more than one American carrier on station. Two more carriers might have eventually carried the day, but would they have taken the risk of suffering the loss of more carriers.
When late information that one American carrier was the Yorktown came to Japanese command, I suspect that the shock of a recently damaged carrier launching a major counter offensive spooked them. Remember that they lacked any naval radar which made them vulnerable to any massive carrier counter attack. Something caused them to withdraw from Midway as something caused them to withdraw from the Coral sea... doubt and fear.
Their fear grew as much from facing an aggressive emperor as it did facing a weakened American defense. Their emperor did not cave with the dropping of one atomic bomb; the second drop had to bring panic to the Japanese military who convinced their emperor that the war was lost to this new super weapon.