titan said:
Stive said:
Obviously the hammering of the Japanese carriers during the battle left Japan in a very exposed position going forward. If we hadn't been able to cripple them (say we only sunk one carrier) would they have been able to hold us back for a longer period of time? By how much did those sinkings speed up the war?
This is an appropriate time to jump back in with this movie about to come out. ;-)
Your question is a wide-open one, so let me instead describe what it means in its context. What happens at Midway is the Japanese main element of their "Kido Butai" fast carrier striking (more precisely `raiding' ) force is gutted. Out of the six carriers that hit Pearl Harbor and presided over the capture of much of the South Pacific until halted at Coral Sea battle, the Japanese lose FOUR at Midway. Two crack carriers are left -- and, contrary to myth, most of the skilled aircrews do survive Midway.
However, this is where your question comes to play: IF the Japanese take home more carriers from Midway of Nagumo's force, it is that much stronger for the campaign that WILL decide the Pacific War for real, and that is the long one in Guadalcanal from August 1942-February 1943. THAT, is where the real decision ended up being, where the Japanese power to project offensives was really truly forced back and broken, and where they DO lose many of the cream of their crop aviators.
If the Japanese win Midway, or at least "lose" it more tolerably -- a bit of a `tie' like Coral Sea --- then our invasion of Guadalcanal, a bold offensive, probably doesn't take place when it did. The Japanese probably return to the intention to seize Port Moresby and start closing the ring around Australia, and this time, may win. We have to win at Midway, not just break even.
So the short answer to your question is you can only start to answer it by looking at how more Japanese carriers surviving will impact Guadalcanal. And whether that campaign takes place, or where and when the next great showdown against their surviving carriers (and still crack pilots largely survived as well in this scenario) takes place instead.
Note: this does not mean Japan can win the Pacific War. Probably no chance at all. Its just answering OP's first question.
To expand on this: a lesser American victory at Midway could have effected the subsequent Guadalcanal and Solomons campaigns in a couple of ways:
1) The American leadership decides that the presence of the larger number of Kudo Butai carriers (say, 4, rather than the 2 in the actual history) makes any attempt to take and hold Guadalcanal and it's airfield too risky, despite the threat that airfield poses to the sea lines of communication to Australia. Without Guadalcanal, the rest of the Solomons campaign might never happen, and the subsequent Pacific war may look a whole lot more like a straight play of War Plan Orange - a single drive through the Central Pacific, but much slower and more costly because the Japanese, particularly their air arm, haven't been ground down by attrition in the Southwest Pacific.
2) The threat to the sea lanes to Australia is deemed serious enough to justify the risk of landing at Guadalcanal, even with a stronger Kudo Butai able to threaten them. That would make the oft ignored carrier battles at Eastern Solomons and the Santa Cruz Islands a lot rougher for the USN. Eastern Solomons led to Enterprise having to go home for major repairs after going up against 2 IJN fleet carriers. Up that to 4, and Enterprise probably goes to the bottom. If Enterprise sinks at the Eastern Solomons, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands might not even happen, because Enterprise was one of the two US carriers involved in the later battle, which resulted in the loss of the Hornet. (Saratoga was in drydock at the time, having been torpedoed by a submarine). I doubt Halsey would have willingly sent 1 carrier up against 4.
With more carriers available, the IJN might well have been able to neutralize Henderson Field sufficiently to allow the Japanese army to bring in enough troops and supplies to recapture the airfield. Which brings us to the same endpoint as above - without Guadalcanal, the rest of the Solomons campaign probably doesn't happen.
And that brings up another interesting thought: without the Solomons campaign, MacArthur's whole New Guinea campaign probably isn't feasible (also, the troops used in the Solomons operations are likely in Hawaii or the States, and not available to MacArthur.) That would have been presented FDR with a mammoth political headache - what to do with MacArthur. King isn't going to allow him anywhere near Nimitz's central Pacific operations, and MacArthur isn't going to be happy, or quiet, simply defending Australia.
