On June 4, 1942, an earth-shattering event occurred in the Pacific Theater, when the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy engaged in a fierce exchange of fire on Midway Island. The Battle of Midway was the first classic battle between an aircraft carrier group and an aircraft carrier group in the history of human warfare, and under the ambush of the United States, the Japanese Navy suffered heavy losses and eventually fled.
However, after the Battle of Midway, the real nightmare for the defeated Japanese naval soldiers had just begun. So how did the Japanese lose at the Battle of Midway, and what happened to the naval soldiers after the defeat?
Kick off and sneak up on Pearl Harbor
In the middle of the second world war, Germany and Japan showed great military strength in the European battlefield and the Asian battlefield respectively. Germany even drove Britain off the sea and occupied Britain and France in its entirety, at a time when more and more people were calling for peace as the world war was expanding.
At this time, the United States has been making a lot of war wealth, and at the same time has sold many military resources to Japan, and the direct relationship between Japan and the United States is very delicate. But under constant international calls, the United States was pressured to break off all deals with Japan. Japan also realized at this time that the United States might participate in World War II, and judging by the attitude of the United States, it would be easy to join the Allies.
When Japan thought about it, it felt that its situation was becoming more and more difficult, and in order to open up the supply line, Japan launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The purpose of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was to focus on attacking the US military's maritime forces, and to strive for the complete destruction of all US aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft in Pearl Harbor in World War I.
But while the Japanese Navy's plan was perfect, the attack on Pearl Harbor was really not a real success. Judging from the results of the battle, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did not give the United States a fatal blow, but only injured an American aircraft carrier, and under the strong industrial capabilities of the United States, in the subsequent Battle of Midway, the aircraft carrier has been repaired.
But this incident completely aroused the anger of the people of the United States and forced the United States to join the Second World War on the side of the Allied forces. At the same time, both Japan and the United States began to prepare for the next military operation.
The decisive battle for Midway Island was defeated by the Japanese army
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan still occupied the absolute initiative in the Navy, first of all, in terms of aircraft carriers, the United States has already "lost combat effectiveness" in an aircraft carrier in pearl harbor. However, the Japanese aircraft carriers all have combat effectiveness and more than the United States, and the naval combat power of the two sides is not completely equal.
At this point, both sides set their sights on Midway. Midway is located in the middle of the U.S. and Japanese routes, it can be said that occupying Midway, there is no need for fighters to take off from the aircraft carrier to threaten the mainland of both sides, land aircraft can depart from Midway to threaten the other side's mainland, so the significance of Midway is self-evident.
Japan now had an idea of Midway. Japan is a very strict country, and at the time of pearl harbor, their naval staff constantly practiced military operations against both sides on the sand table, and launched a perfect attack after the drill and planning were perfect.
But under the Midway Naval Exercise, Japan was not as rigorous as before. One of the Japanese naval staff officers predicted that the United States might ambush around Midway Island and launch a surprise attack on Japan, which would eventually lead to Japan's disastrous sandbox exercise. However, Japanese naval officer Junichi Minamimoto denied the exercise, believing that the US side could not predict the direction of its own attack and demanded a re-exercise.
In the end, the Japanese naval military concluded that the United States launched the Battle of Midway under the premise of the fiasco at Midway. In the Battle of Midway, the Japanese army still launched a surprise attack to sneak up on Midway. But U.S. intelligence had long since detected the Japanese intent and stepped up their guard on Midway, while several carrier formations were ambushed around.
Nan yun Zhongyi did not know why, so the four Japanese aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft went out of the nest, all carrying bombs to bomb the Midway military base. However, under the protection of the army at the Midway military base, the Japanese attack for the first time did not cause significant damage to the runway of the Midway air base.
The U.S. Midway Air Force could still take off to harass Japanese aircraft carriers. Nan yun Zhongyi saw that his combat objectives had not been fully achieved, and asked the carrier-based aircraft to take off again with land combat equipment to bomb the air runway. But by this time, the U.S. aircraft carrier formation was already close to the Japanese aircraft carrier group.
After the Japanese carrier-based aircraft replaced a new round of land combat equipment, they took off again, and the US military launched a surprise attack on the Japanese army. Japan had no premonition of the American ambush and was caught off guard. Minamimoto was forced to have the untaken carrier-based aircraft immediately replace the naval battle torpedoes, but the sudden order left the Japanese logistics who had just changed their equipment in a hurry.
For a time, the Japanese aircraft carriers were full of land and sea bombs, and the cabins were very dangerous. After the Japanese Navy had been replaced, the fighters had all been lost by this time, and a large number of newly replaced bombs had been piled up in the replacement warehouse. The bomb dropped by the US plane happened to fall into the bomb, and the four aircraft carriers of the Japanese aircraft carriers "Akagi", "Kaga", "Soryu", and "Wyryu" were all destroyed and lost their combat effectiveness.
At the same time, carrier-based aircraft and cruisers have suffered heavy losses. It can be said that in this war, Japan completely lost its dominance in the Pacific War and was forced from a strategic offensive to a passive defense. On the other hand, the United States, on the other hand, lost only one aircraft carrier and successfully completed the counter-superiority of the naval forces of both sides.
The defeat at the Battle of Midway was not only the beginning of Japan's defeat in the battle, but also the beginning of a psychological defeat. After Japan's great defeat, the tragic situation of Japanese naval soldiers is unimaginable.
A leaf is blinding, and the end is bleak
The Battle of Midway in Japan wiped out nearly 10 years of naval savings overnight. The 110 Japanese pilots who died were all elite Japanese pilots, and it was difficult for Japan to supply personnel for a while. What's more, the fiasco at Midway was bound to raise questions about Japan's victory in World War II.
Therefore, the Japanese Navy immediately blocked the news of the defeat after the Battle of Midway. At the same time, Japan hyped up the news of the victory at the Battle of Midway at home in an attempt to greatly increase the confidence of the people. In fact, however, news of failure is always leaked.
In order to prevent the leakage of military secrets, All military personnel involved in the Battle of Midway were dispatched to the islands for island activities. And in order to make this matter absolutely impossible, all the people stationed on the island cannot send letters, telegrams and other information to their families. This move can be said to have made all the island personnel a lone army, which greatly reduced the morale of the island personnel.
In addition, for the wounded, the Japanese army gathered a group of medical personnel who were deeply rooted in the Japanese militaristic ideology. These people are convinced of militarism, have absolute loyalty to the Japanese state, and will never divulge any information. Since then, the personnel involved in the Battle of Midway, both the wounded and the people stationed on the island, have no means of contact with the outside world.
These outcasts are extremely sad that the country treats themselves in this way. At the same time, this also made it impossible for many Japanese personnel in the later period to firmly believe in the idea of militarism, and the combat effectiveness of Japanese troops in the later stages of the war was greatly reduced. These outcasts eventually became victims of The Japanese Ichiba Barrier in the desert island.
In addition to the ordinary soldiers and officers in the army, the fate of senior Japanese generals was also very tragic. Senior Officer of the Japanese Navy, Junichi Minamimoto, as the chief officer in charge of the defeat at the Battle of Midway, was "sent to the frontier" by the top and stationed on Saipan. When Nan yun Zhongyi was in Saipan, he hoped that he could wash away his shame in a war.
However, in the Battle of Midway, the pit dug by Nanyun Tadaichi for Japan was too large, and the Japanese maritime elites were all lost in this battle, and in the later period, they could only use the Yamato to fight for maritime supremacy. It is conceivable that Japan has no power to return to heaven, and on Saipan, the defeat of Nanyun Junichi has become a foregone conclusion.
In the end, Nan Yun Zhongyi could not look directly at the front line of the group of Marines who died on Saipan, and finally chose the usual suicide method used by the Japanese and committed suicide by caesarean section. And the Mastermind of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Isoroku Yamamoto, also failed to die, and the United States naturally set a series of assassination plans for this mastermind who burned the war to the United States mainland.
After the Battle of Midway, Yamamoto learned that his intelligence code was still cracked by the United States, so he replaced it with a new version. During this time, Yamamoto Tookroku used the new version of the code to convey his own inspection of Rabaul. However, all this was learned by the US intelligence services, which once again cracked the new version of the Japanese code and knew the time and route of Yamamoto's inspection of Rabaul.
Nimitz then drew up plans for an ambush, which was eventually agreed after discussions at the White House. In April 1943, Yamamoto was intercepted by U.S. aircraft on his way to Rabaul. After the American planes lured the escort planes to the other side, two fighters fired wildly at Yamamoto's plane.
Eventually, The right wing of Isoroku Yamamoto caught fire and lost power, eventually crashing into the forest. Yamamoto did not expect that the United States would know its movements so quickly, and at the same time did not expect that he would end his life in this way. Since then, all the officers and men involved in the Battle of Midway have either committed suicide or become outcasts of the state, and the fate is not tragic.
epilogue
Japan's defeat is an inevitable trend, and war tests the endurance of the nation to see who can survive it. In the end, Japan failed to sit still in the Pacific Theater, provoked enemies that should not be provoked, and eventually accelerated its own demise.
And these soldiers who participated in the Battle of Midway, they should not have thought until their deaths, that their unquestionable militarist ideas would eventually make themselves abandoned by the country. Not only was it impossible to visit relatives, but it was even impossible to transmit any information to the country, and his life was erased by the state.