XX人には分からないでしょうなぁ
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４．ミッドウェイ海戦
■この戦いは米国側が決定的に勝利し、日本は守勢に追い込まれ、更なる領土拡張の計画が
頓挫することになった。
■もし逆の結果だとしたら、米国の戦争努力は１年は遅れ、おそらくはルーズベルト政権をして
対日平和交渉をさせただろう。
■この戦いの特徴は、全て航空機だけの戦いになったことだ。日米両軍はお互いの空母を海底に
沈めるべく出撃した。
■日本は戦略上必要な島の征服に失敗しただけではなく、１５分間で４隻の大型空母のうち３隻と
空母パイロットを喪失した。そして米軍を敗北させるという夢が永久に終わることになった。
■この戦いは米軍が数に置いて劣勢だった唯一の戦いでもある。４隻の空母は真珠湾の仇を討たれた。
■この勝利はわずか２ヶ月前のフィリッピンの喪失でよろめいていた米国民の志気を上げることになった。
4. Battle of Midway, June 4-6, 1942
This was the engagement that won the war in the Pacific for the United States by so decisively
defeating the Japanese Navy that it was forced to go on the defensive and end its plans for further
territorial conquest. (Had it gone the other way, it could well have set the American war effort
back a year and possibly even forced the Roosevelt administration to sue for peace.) The interesting
thing about this battle is that even though it involved scores of ships on both sides, neither fleet
ever spotted the other. In fact, all the fighting was done from the air, with the American and
Japanese carrier pilots taking turns trying to send each other to the bottom. In the end, it was
Japan who came off the worst: not only did it fail to conquer the strategic island of Midway,
but in a fifteen-minute span of time, it lost three of its four big aircraft carriers along
with most of its best pilots, ending its dreams of finally defeating the American fleet once and for all.
This was also one of the few battles of World War Two in which the Americans were outnumbered,
with Admiral Nimitz commanding a fleet built around just three carriers to Japan’s four.
The sinking of four of Japan’s irreplaceable carriers was also a sort of payback for Pearl Harbor
as all four carriers Japan lost had participated in the attack on December 7th, making it doubly
satisfying for a nation still reeling from the disaster of losing the Philippines two months earlier.
