On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was successful, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet suffered heavy losses, but because its aircraft carrier was not in port at that time, it escaped a disaster, but this made the Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, particularly concerned, on the one hand, the regret of the results of the battle, did not achieve the most important strategic purpose of "destroying the U.S. aircraft carrier", on the other hand, he was worried about the United States counterattack at any time. Therefore, in order to completely destroy the US Pacific Fleet, deprive the United States of its strategic initiative in the Pacific, and stifle the RETALIATION of the United States, the Japanese Navy's top brass drew up a "Mi Operation" plan to lure the US Pacific Fleet to annihilate the US Pacific Fleet at Midway.
Attack on Pearl Harbor
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="38" > Yamamoto's ambitions</h1>
Just after Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States, Japan once gained control of the western Pacific, the Japanese military hyped up the gratifying war reports obtained at home, and the citizens of Tokyo, instigated by the enthusiasm of the war, lined up in a long line, waving paper sun flags, and flocked to the gate of the imperial palace to hold a victory celebration.
However, there was one man who could not be pleased, and he was General Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Japanese Navy. After the success of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he calmly and soberly pointed out: We have only awakened a giant, and we must complete the unfinished business of attacking Pearl Harbor and completely destroy the US Pacific Fleet before the giant has risen.
Is6 Yamamoto
In his opinion, although the US military was attacked by the Japanese sneak attack losses are not small, 8 battleships, 4 were sunk, one stranded, the rest were seriously damaged; 6 cruisers and 3 destroyers were damaged, more than 200 aircraft were destroyed, thousands of officers and soldiers were killed and injured, but the 3 aircraft carriers of the US Pacific Fleet were unscathed, which is equivalent to only hurting the skin and flesh of the United States, failing to move the bones, and at that time, the United States was strong and industrially developed, once the US war machine started, Japan would be difficult to overwhelm, therefore, The destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet is imminent.
In late December 1941, Yamamoto, after seeing the U.S. report on the casualties of Pearl Harbor, said: "The Americans have suffered so much losses, and they still have the courage to tell the truth." For such an opponent, it should be beaten fiercely! He then ordered the Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Ugaki, and his staff to immediately draw up a second phase of the strategic plan.
The Japanese Admiralty proposed two plans, one was to attack India, encourage the Indian people to oppose British colonization, and eventually make peace with Germany in the Persian Gulf; the second was to attack Australia to prevent the Americans from using the South Pacific as a counter-offensive base. The War Department believes that the key to the war lies in the Chinese battlefield and opposes the expansion of the navy's front. Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto believed that the U.S. aircraft carrier was the primary target.
USS York (sunk)
At the beginning of 1942, Japan had been arguing over the next strategic step, and on April 2, Yamamoto Fifty-Six submitted a plan to attack Midway to the base camp, which immediately triggered a series of objections, for which Yamamoto Fifty-Six was unable to refute these objections, and had to resign as a threat, and finally the base camp agreed to Yamamoto Fifty-Six's battle plan.
Just two days after the plan was submitted to the "Emperor of Japan," on April 18, 1942, in order to boost the morale of the United States that had fallen to the bottom since pearl harbor, the US military sent 16 B-25 bombers to carry out a retaliatory bombing of Tokyo.
Strategic location on Midway
Midway Island, with an area of 4.7 square kilometers, is 2800 nautical miles away from San Francisco in the United States and Yokohama in Japan, and is in the middle of the Pacific route between Asia and North America, hence the name Midway. 1135 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor, it is an important military base and transportation hub of the United States in the central Pacific region, and it is also the gateway and outpost of the US military in Hawaii, and once Midway Isle is lost, Pearl Harbor, the headquarters of the US Pacific Fleet, will also be lost. Because of its unique geographical location, it has become a place of contention between the United States and Japan.
In the operation against Midway, the strategic deployment of the Japanese army was "expected to enter the waters of Midway island on June 4, Tokyo time, with six aircraft carriers of the First Air Fleet led by Tadaichi Minamitake, to bombard the U.S. airfield on the island; on June 5, to attack Midway Island again in preparation for landing; on June 6, to occupy the western atoll; on June 7, the Marine Army occupied Midway Island" The Japanese army expected that the U.S. troops would arrive in midway waters after the Japanese landing, and then Kondo Nobutake lured the U.S. fleet north. Minamimoto's carrier fleet was ambushed northeast of Midway, and if all went well, the Japanese fleet would go to support the southwestern theater after annihilating the American forces.
Ugaki tangled
To this end, the chief of staff of the Japanese combined fleet, Ugaki, specially arranged for the ministers of the Navy to conduct a simulated confrontation with the admirals, and Ugaki served as the commander and referee of the simulated confrontation, and the entire deduction lasted for four days, and the result of the simulated battle was: "Captain Matsuda Chiaki of the Yamato commanded only the American Pacific Fleet on the chessboard, and easily defeated the Japanese combined fleet." The Japanese aircraft carriers were hit nine times in total, three were sunk, and Akama, Kaga, and Soryu sank."
Normally speaking, deducing this result should make all the officers participating in the war pay attention to it, "whether this war can be fought like this, and how should it be fought with a great chance of winning." However, the chief of staff, Ugaki, was very dissatisfied with the result, how could the aircraft carrier of the Empire of Japan be hit nine times, so he ordered the result to be changed. The other ministers are stupid, this is the result of their simulation in the past few days, how can they say that they will change it. But in the end, it was changed, only three bombs of the US army hit the target, only the "Kaga" aircraft carrier was sunk, the Japanese army won a complete victory, and then submitted the results of the battle to the emperor, who was very satisfied.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42" > the U.S. side to decipher the code and grasp the overall situation</h1>
On April 18, 1942, the U.S. Air Force's air raid on Tokyo, Japan, not only gave the Japanese the shock that "the United States can attack the Japanese mainland at any time", but also made the newly appointed commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Admiral Nimitz, clearly realize that the Japanese will never give up and will certainly launch a new round of attacks in the near future, but where is the target? Nimitz doesn't know. Therefore, deciphering Japanese intelligence and understanding the movements and intentions of the Japanese army became Nimitz's top priority.
Chester William Nimitz
At that time, the Japanese army's cipher system was improved by the German "Enniger code machine", and the main password of the cipher system consisted of 10,000 five-digit digital groups. In order to increase its security performance, it is also equipped with 50,000 groups of five-digit random number groups, and the sender joins any few groups of random numbers during communication, and one of the groups tells the recipient to use the number of pages and paragraphs of the codebook. Usually, random number groups change frequently, but the master password remains largely unchanged.
The Japanese Wyvern was sunk
After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy used all its intelligence services in the hope of deciphering codes to understand the movements of the Japanese army.
On January 20, 1942, the Japanese submarine "I-124" was ordered to lay mines off the coast of Darwin Harbor on the Australian Naval Base, and was besieged and sunk by American destroyers and 3 Australian speedboats.
At this time, Japan did not know that its submarine was sunk, thinking that it was an accident, so it did not cause alarm, and it was even more unexpected that the codebook had fallen into the hands of the United States, or used the "JN-25b" as usual, which laid the hidden danger for the success or failure of the key battles that followed.
On May 20, the U.S. military deciphered the Japanese cable, but did not understand what the repeated "AF" in the Japanese cable meant.
The Japanese Mikuma was sunk
According to long-deciphered Japanese communications, the Japanese usually used the two letters beginning with A as code names for some parts of the Pacific. For example AH is Pearl Harbor, AG is the Marshall Islands. Intelligence officer Rochefort found a Japanese telegram from a sea of cables asking seaplanes to take off from the Marshall Islands to Fly to Pearl Harbor, and mentioned that they should be careful to avoid aerial reconnaissance from the AF. From the analysis of the map, Rochester ford believes that AF refers to Midway!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="43" > the temptation of "fresh water"</h1>
The rigor of deciphering intelligence content is the most basic requirement, and reasoning and judgment alone are not enough, there must be conclusive evidence! How can we prove that AF is Midway? Rochefort listened to a subordinate's proposal, and he advised Nimitz to report by undersea telephone that midway's freshwater equipment had failed and that the island had difficulty using water. And asked the Pearl Harbor garrison to call back: water supply ships had been sent to Midway.
The Japanese immediately took the bait, and they informed the troops in the front that the "AF" may be short of fresh water, and the troops should carry more fresh water purifiers when landing on the island.
Rochester was right, and the next target of the Japanese attack was Midway!
Midway
In order to completely annihilate the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Yamamoto dispatched almost all of the Japanese Navy and naval aviation, including 8 light and heavy aircraft carriers, 11 battleships, 23 cruisers, 65 destroyers and 21 submarines. The U.S. Pacific Fleet had only 3 aircraft carriers (more than 230 carrier-based aircraft), 8 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 19 submarines, and zero battleships. In terms of investing troops and equipment resources, the Japanese army has a great chance of winning.
In his diary on May 16, 1942, the young Sanwa Shosa, then a member of the Japanese Combined Fleet Staff, wrote: "The fleet sailed north of the sub-island and continued to march eastward, the largest expedition in the history of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the fleet, from the commander down to the soldiers, felt victorious." ”
Although Yamamoto's odds were great, what he did not expect was that their operation and most of their operational deployment had been intercepted and deciphered by the U.S. military, and their every move was in the hands of General Nimitz, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="44" > the decisive battle begins</h1>
Fleet Commander Nimitz sent the deciphered outline of Yamamoto's battle plan to the admirals. The materials not only contain the course and timetable of the actions of the Japanese ships, but even specify the day of June 4, when the Japanese aircraft carrier forces will attack from the northwest, at 325 degrees, at about 6 o'clock in the morning midway time, and the detail of the report is shocking.
The Great War is coming, and at this time one side knows the situation very well, and the other side is still in the dark.
Fifteen U.S. aircraft were shot down
In the early morning of June 4, 1942, Japanese Vice Admiral Tadaichi Minamifumi gave the order to attack Midway island according to the established plan. At the beginning of the war, Japan had a clear advantage in the number of ships and personnel, but after several rounds of competition, until the end of the war, the US army only lost 1 aircraft carrier, 1 destroyer and 147 aircraft, killing 307 people, while Japan lost 4 of the 8 aircraft carriers, 1 cruiser, 330 aircraft, and hundreds of well-trained and experienced pilots and 3700 crew members.
The outcome of the war shocked the Japanese top brass, and in order to cover up its fiasco, avoid demoralizing the troops, and maintain the dignity of the Empire of Japan, the Japanese Navy completely blocked the news.
On June 10, Japanese radio broadcast a resounding naval song and declared that Japan had "become the most powerful country in the Pacific." When the officers and men of the disastrous fleet returned to their garrison exhausted, Tokyo held a lantern parade to celebrate the victory, and the people of the whole country were immersed in the joy of laughter and laughter.
Battle of Midway
After returning to yokosuka military port, all the wounded Japanese soldiers were immediately sent to the hospital for isolation and complete isolation from the outside world, and it is obvious that all the soldiers who were seriously injured were forbidden to have contact with their relatives and friends. Although Yamamoto took full responsibility for the defeat, the base camp did not remove him from his post in order to keep the results of the battle secret, while the healthy survivors were gradually dispersed to the southwest Pacific front, and all documents related to the Battle of Midway were classified as "top secret". Until Japan's surrender in 1945, almost all documents about the naval battle were destroyed.
Japanese Lantern Festival
After heavy damage at the Battle of Midway, the Japanese Navy declined. The U.S. Navy's top brass commented afterwards: "The Battle of Midway was the first decisive defeat of the Japanese Navy in 350 years. It ended Japan's long offensive and restored the balance of naval power in the Pacific. Subsequently, due to the lack of support from carrier-based aviation, the range of activities of japanese naval forces was greatly limited, Japan's strategic initiative in the Pacific Theater was gradually lost, and the war situation began to turn in favor of the Allies, and the Battle of Midway became a turning point in the Pacific Theater.