Imperial Japanese Navy and Single Line Item Essay

Summary

I chose the battle of midway because I thought it was a good turning point during ww2 as it allowed the USA to gain a large advantage in the pacific campaign because they managed to destroy most of Japanese carrier’s depriving the Japanese of major naval air combat power. The simple fact that the US emerged as victor from the battle of Midway is not the reason for it being the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
The carriers Kaga, Akagi, Hiryū and Sōryū were lost by Japan while only managing to sink one American carrier, the Yorktown. The two large carriers that Japan had left after Midway, Zuikaku and Shōkaku were not enough to provide enough support for offensive action. Although Yamamoto still had a good number of surface ships including the battleships Yamato and Musashi, the largest and most powerfull ships deployed in WW2, he new he could accomplish nothing without air support and thus avoided conventional offensive after Midway. Firstly, due to organization and industry, Japan was in a situation that it would not be easy to replace any losses it sustained in any fight. That is, while the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) was superior to any other country's at that point in time, Japan could generally only provide few replacements for any losses, and replacements (both in ships and men) would be inferior in quality to any lost.

The United States was in an opposite position - the US Navy was smaller, less experience, and had inferior equipment to the IJN. However, it could reasonably expect to receive better and more replacements than the IJN, and could look forward to having both superior numbers and superior quality in a year or so.

The, the goal of the IJN was to take advantage of their temporary superiority in numbers and quality, to inflict a crippling loss on the current USN, forcing the US into a strategic corner, from where its material and manpower

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Imperial Japanese Navy and Single Line Item Essay

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