Wikipedia has a good account of the battle. Its good for us to pause and remember – and especially so for our battles of the Pacific War, most of which seem to have dropped out of the public mind.
Midway is especially worth remembering because it was a fight against long odds and we won it. Outnumbered and facing a much better trained and experienced force, the US Navy met the Japanese fleet toe to toe and administered a crushing defeat. Before Midway, there was no limit to Japanese conquest in the Pacific – after Midway, it was only a matter of time before Japan was beaten.
Had the battle gone the other way, Hawaii would have been open to invasion and the US west coast naked to raids and other destruction. It would have added years to the war, at the very least, and might have eventually forced a negotiated peace leaving Japan in control of a mighty empire.
So, remember those brave men – especially the hundreds of Navy pilots, some of them flying hopelessly obsolete aircraft thanks to pre-War idiocy about military spending, who threw themselves upon the Japanese fleet with no thought for their own safety.
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