Eighty-Three Years Ago Today... Time Travel

At 7:00AM, eighty-three years ago today, pilots of the U.S. Navy took off from their aircraft carriers, flew until tomorrow, bombed and sunk four aircraft carriers of the Japanese Imperial Fleet, and then flew back to their aircraft carriers yesterday. Nearly simultaneously, pilots of the Imperial Fleet took off today, flew until yesterday, bombed one aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy (twice), and returned to their fleet tomorrow, only to discover that their aircraft carriers were all sunk. The U.S. aircraft carrier that they bombed was sunk by a Japanese submarine the next day. Twirl that one around in your head a couple of times.

The Battle of Midway was the only battle ever flown over the International Date Line, fought June 4th through June 6th, 1942. Four Japanese carriers and a cruiser were sunk, and one cruiser and two destroyers damaged. One U.S. carrier and a destroyer were sunk. There were 307 U.S. casualties, including three taken POW and then murdered. There were 3057 Japanese casualties.

Imperial Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who wasn't in favor of engaging in war with the U.S., predicted he might have six months of success after the first attack on the U.S., after which he didn't predict success. The Battle of Midway occurred almost exactly to the day, six months after Pearl Harbor.

Bob

Nicely done!

And the reality of course is that the victory was due first of all to signals intelligence and secondly to pure luck in that Nagumo did not heed the advice to immediately launch against the detected US carrier(s) instead of rearming his planes and being caught in the process of doing so. History really does hang by a thread surprisingly often, despite all "the best laid plans of mice and men". And then Yamato slunk away when he of all people knew that the war was being decided that very day and that to save himself or his ships at the price of defeat was pointless. Or perhaps even then he realized the war would have to end the way it did and that he might as well preserve what he could for the future?