Posted on 06/03/2012 3:50:59 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Spanning hundreds of leagues and four days, June 4-7, 1942, the Battle of Midway pitted an overmatched American fleet against a Japanese armada in a desperate struggle for command of the Pacific. What unfolded more than 1,000 miles northwest of Hawaii was, British historian John Keegan maintains, the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.
Saturday in San Diego, the U.S. Navy celebrated this triumphs 70th anniversary. Aboard the retired aircraft carrier named for the battle, 1,000 guests were to hear videotaped comments from a handful of survivors.
They included aviators, Marines and one plucky steward.
The Japanese had the most ships, that steward, 97-year-old Andy Mills, said during an earlier interview in his San Diego home. But we knew they were coming we had cracked their codes. We had the upper hand.
The U.S. Navy may have had another advantage it was stocked with flexible, creative officers and sailors. Mills, a black man in the then-segregated Navy, began the Battle of Midway as a steward aboard the carrier Yorktown, making meals and cleaning rooms. Before the battles end, he would crack a safe, struggle to save a doomed vessel and abandon ship twice.
Midway turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific, snapping a string of Japanese victories that had begun six months earlier at Pearl Harbor.
(Excerpt) Read more at utsandiego.com ...
By then the Soviets probably would have been in the fight and would have staked their claim to at least half of Japan after the war's conclusion.
Just 1/2?! I think that the Soviets would have taken ALL of Hakkido(sp?) ALL of Honshu and we would have just had just Kaiushu and Okinawa. The Russians had is HARD for Japan after 1905.
Oh the wanted the whole thing I agree....and we very well could have had a Japanese Civil War that would have made Korea look like a walk in the park.
And assuming Mao takes control of China, they certainly wanted their piece as well.
It should be remembered that prior to WW ll the US was isolated from foreign attack and many Americans wanted no part of a war across the Pacific or the Atlantic but aircraft carriers abruptly changed that. Pearl Harbor was a cataclysmic shock to Americans that totally united the country to defend and retaliate. Japs made a huge mistake attacking Pearl Harbor and fortunately for the Japanese Japan still exist as a country today and not an empty hole in the sea.
WW ll changed the world and put technology in the fast lane and that of course has been a great benefit to the herds residing on planet Earth but God only knows what the next world war will bring.
The ineffectiveness of Hornet during the battle meant it was 4 against 2 for all practical purposes.
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