The Battle of Midway was the Turning Point of WWII

Nice try feder808, but Midway was the pivotal point in the Pacific in WWII.

For a point it was the Battle of Midway that determined the out come of the war in the Pacific, with out those 4 carriers, 250 aircraft, and 300 pilots, Japan could not stop the invasion of Guadalcanal, or reverse it in the end.

For Guadalcanal, the Japanese had only two light carriers, and 4 seaplane tenders for naval air support left to defend it's interests, the cream of it's aviation corps was dead, years of combat operations experience gone in a day at the bottom of the sea.

It all started with the Battle of the Coral Sea, were Japan lost the Light Carrier Shoho, (sunk), and the Fleet Carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku damaged and out of action, 92 of the fleets aircraft, almost 25% of the fleet air arm.

The main aircraft for the Japanese, the D-3A Val, and the B-5N Kate were in short supply because for some reason Japan had drastically reduced production of the Val, and completely stopped production of the Kate, so they didn't have the ability to readily replace aircraft loses from normal daily operations let alone from a massive combat lose.

A second point was that Japans aviation training program was barely turning out enough pilots to meet the day to day loses at that point in the war, let alone to replace almost 25% of the Fleet pilot personnel in the 4 weeks between the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway, let alone the almost 75% lose of the Fleet Pilot compliment after Midway.

The next point is, that after Midway the Japanese only had two light carriers, and four seaplane tenders available for operations in defense of Guadalcanal, the Fleet Carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku were still in dry dock being repaired from their mauling at the Coral Sea, so it was Midway that was the turning point, not Guadalcanal, point of fact being that we won at the Canal only by the skin of our Teeth, but from that point on the industrial might of the U.S. crushed the Japanese, we could replace our loses 10 times plus and over, Japan could only endure.

 

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The Pacific War and all other fronts of WW2 were side shows to the Eastern Front. There are countries outside your window with far more interesting histories than your own. That is all.

 

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Haha, buffalo buffalo buffalo. You should have known better man. Because right here 6 inches from my computer is a twenty F****** two page paper on the Pacific war. I not only can tell you in explicit detail why you are wrong, but I can do it with a smile on my pretty face

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. I know the Pacific war like the back of my f****** hand.

The battle of Midway changed NOTHING. The Japanese lost 4 carriers, big deal. They still had several other aircraft carriers PLUS the initiative. The Battle of Midway was us playing defense and winning.

You dont ever have pivotal battles when playing defense, you get pivotal battles when you have great offenses.

The fact is that Guadalcanal decided the fate of the Pacific war.

If the Japanese had taken Guadalcanal it would have served as an air base to cut off supplies to Australia, bomb Australia, and cover any landing force that may attack Australia. Potentially taking the whole darn island.

Tell me? What did Midway do to change the Japanese war plan? Nothing

It literally did not halt their advance AT ALL. Actually, they sped up their advance. That's right, in the long run the Battle of Midway sped up the Japanese attack.

Guadalcanal was the first major allied offensive of the Pacific war.

There were many periods of time when the fate of Guadalcanal was undecided. And the Japanese carriers still had some massive punch behind them despite what your limited knowledge of the war may have. You see, the American ships actually abandoned 11,000 marines on Guadalcanal with little more than half of what they needed because they were scared of Japanese aircraft carriers. And with good reason because right after the initial landings Japanese aircraft sank two US cruisers and one allied cruiser.

Midway did not change a thing. We sank 4 carriers, whoopdy doo. Guadalcanal won the war. Midway as an island has NO strategic value, hell, the Japanese did not even attack it for strategic value. The island was worthless, sure we needed it to help refuel, but we had other islands that could do that. What do you think they were actually planning to attack the mainland?

Guadalcanal decided the fate of the war. You wanna know why? Remember how I said that if the Japanese took the island that they could bomb Australia, cut off our resupply lines, and potentially invade Australia?

If we took Guadalcanal which we did we could cover landing forces attacking the other Japanese island. That island was the prologue to the famous island hoping campaign. Major General Alexander Vandegrift was in charge of the marines at Lunga Point and would later become the chief of staff. Everyone in the US knew the story of the heroes of Guadalcanal and the brave marines that defended Lunga point from wave after wave after wave of enemy attack.

And those are just the land battles.

Look it even says so:

In the battle of Guadalcanal the US destroyed 38 Japanese ships, killed 71,000 soldiers (far more than Midway I might add), captured 1,000 Japanese troops, and destroyed 683-880 Japanese aircraft. And many of those were Japan's top of the line soldiers, airmen, and sailors.

Only a little more than 2,000 Japanese soldiers were killed at Midway with a mere 248 Japanese aircraft destroyed.

Even the Japanese commanders and officers agree with me that Guadalcanal was the definitive turning point of the Pacific War.

The Japanese still had a lot more carriers than you think after Midway. Those four may have been their better ones, but do not decieve yourself, they were not the only ones.

I rest my case, and yes, I do have a smile on my face

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Hah, that was only because of Britain and Russia. The Japanese were a much more massive threat than petty Hitler. Seriously, where was he going to go? He was stopped in Russia, stopped in Britain, sure there's Africa, but so what? That's not exactly a massive priority. The Japanese stretched their influence from Pearl Harbor to Madagascar and from Australia to Northern China.

That is a much more massive area than Hitler's domain.

 

just some water ...

 

Sorry fedder808, the Japanese were not at parity, any more, the battleship was dead as the major capital ship, it was now a carrier war, and Japan from the point of Midway on was behind the curve.

It didn't have the capacity to expand it's carrier fleet, and barely had the ability to replace its carrier loses, it was reduced to converting freighters and seaplane tenders to light carriers, and the lose of experienced combat naval aviators was absolutely disastrous to future operation, it didn't have the pilots or planes to staff or equip what carriers it cobbled together and threw in to the war.

You can have all the battle ships, cruisers, and destroyers in the world, but if you cannot get close enough to engage in a surface action, you don't have parity, all you have are targets, and that is how the rest of the war progressed, from Midway to the end, carrier actions, against targets well over the horizon, aircraft delivering the fight to the enemies navy, and Japan never came close to recovering parity.

The U.S. ended the war with 150 carriers of all sizes in operation, and had even more on the ways, Japan had only manage to build a additional 10 carriers by 1945.

 

Buffalo, even the major commanders of the conflict agree with me. Now as limited as your knowledge of the actual war may be I will say that in all reality if the people that fought the damn thing agree with me and disagree with you than that is concrete proof that you are wrong.

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so what exactly?

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It meant Japan could expand wherever they liked, they even captured part of the Aluetians for a little while.

 

Hitler defeated himself, there were numerous instances where, as a result of Hitler's interference the Germans doomed themselves.

And who gives a crap about territory? The eastern front had more battles of a bigger scope between two more evenly matched foes than anything that was going on in the pacific, oh and don't forget the disparity in the quality of the generals between the two fronts I'll take Zhukov over MacArthur any day of the week. Pull your head out you chauvinist.

 

I agree with you 100% there.

Look at the miracle at Dunkirk, if not for Hitler's idiotic interferance his generals would have demolished the British army right than and there.

 

Look, Im not knocking what Russia did. But the fact is that Hitler could not expand anywhere else even if he wanted to. Russia did an amazing job of stopping him, he failed at Britain, where else was he supposed to go?

Japan still had a lot of territory they could conquer. To be so shortsighted to not see that obvious fact is idiotic.


Tell me, was Hitler any sort of threat to the allies by the time D-day was about to be launched? He couldnt conquer anything of value to us anymore. We could have stopped right there and we would not have lost a thing. We could have waited till Japan was under control.

 

Buffalo, I never said that Midway was not the turning point of the war. While that fact is still debatable that wasn't what I was saying.

What I said was that the Battle of Guadalcanal was the decisive battle of the Pacific war. The reason is that if Japan won at Guadalcanal they could have potentially taken Australia and at the very least cut off resupply of our allies.

Midway as an island is a worthless island to Japan, they didn't want it for some tactical advantage.

Midway probably could be defined as the turning point of the Pacific war, but it did not give the US the advantage, it did not give us momentum against Japan, namely it helped to blunt their momentum. The decisive battle that gave us our momentum to drive through the Japanese islands and into their home islands was the battle of Guadalcanal.

 

Let's grant that what you say is true (it isn't). What's your point? It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to the point I'm trying to make in that the Eastern Front was a bigger, closer more interesting war than the war in the pacific. There are no equivalent battles of the magnitude or calibre of Stalingrad, Kursk, Kharkov in the Pacific. Did you know that 70% of all combat casualties in World War 2 occurred on the Eastern Front? I bet you do!

Tell me are you an American? I suspect you are. Why are you people so self obsessed? I'm not German or Russian but I'm still able to able to appreciate the enormity of what happened on the Eastern Front and recognise that it was the principle front of the war. I suppose if you genuinely hold an attachment to naval warfare over land I can see your attachment, but I suspect the only real reason you give a shit is because you're an American and you like to revel in your own supposed glory. Please don't pin me as being Anti-American, I'm really not.

 

Your an arrogant prick though. You sure do have the nerve to come into this conversation as a self serving ass. You come in here with a tremendous amount of bias and with some sort of fantasy that all Americans are pricks. You are a self serving ass my friend.

Your not Anti American because people that are anti American actually have first hand experiance of it. You are simply another sheep that is part of the collective jerkwads that feel the need to make fun of whomever is the most powerful. If it was Russia right now not America you would make fun of them just as much.

To come in here with your stupid ass assumptions and your self serving attitude sure does prove what a stupid prick you are. So what? The Russians stopped the Germans, do you think I didn't f*cking know that? And honestly in the context of this forum, do you think I give a flying f*ck?

Were debating what the turning point of the Pacific war was, Midway or Guadalcanal, Buffalo mistyped the title as "of WWII" it was a mistake. What do you want a G-d damned apology? Your the one whom should be apologizing you come in here with a selfish self serving kiss your own ass attitude. We are debating the effects of Midway versus Guadalcanal and you come in here trying to derail the whole conversation like some sort of troll.

Stop being a prick, if your going to derail the topic than I will have an admin get in here and tell you to get back on topic or get the f*ck out.

We never said that America changed the fate of the war. Not once, yet you come in here with your idiotic assumption that we are. You had your judgement planned out by the time you read the G-d damned title on this thread. You came in here with every bias and preconception you could muster.

But the fact is that nobody could have won the second world war on their own. Do you think that Russia had the ability to fight Japan? Did they even have a comparable navy? Russia had a lot of soldiers that they could throw into the conflict as cannon fodder, that is why so many died. And it really speaks to the quality of the Russian troops that the US could do the equivolant thing while only losing a tiny percentage of what Russia did.

Some of the biggest and greatest naval battles of all time happened in the Pacific. If you haven't heard of any than it just goes to show what a dumb prick you are to pass yourself off as some sort of expert when your really not. If you want to debate what battles made the biggest difference than do it somewhere else. But leave your dumb as f*** preconceptions at the door.

Next time read what the f*ck the actual thread is about instead of making it readily apparent what an ass you are being.

I don't revel in glory I don't deserve. But the fact is America did things to win the war just as nobody else did. Just the same as Russia did things to win the war that nobody else did, same thing with England, China, Australia, etc...

Tell me, if the Russians had deployed troops of comparable quality as those of the US or Great Britain or even the quality of Japanese soldiers do you think they would have lost a fraction of the soldiers that they had?

 

You didn't?

Looks like that is exactly what you said.

The Japanese didn't want Midway for some tactical advantage? if Japan had taken Midway they would have naturalized Hawaii as a base of operations, repair, and supply, with the ability to launch air attacks at will from Midway, it would have driven what was left of the Pacific Fleet to the west coast of the U.S. opened Hawaii for invasion, and isolated the sea lane used to supply Australia.

If Japan had taken Midway and Hawaii, the first operations that would have been need in the road back to Japan would have been the recapture of Hawaii and Midway as bases of supply to support any further actions against Japan, as it was because we won at Midway, Hawaii remained the major operations base, supply point, and repair facility, and made it possible to stage support and supply deep into the Pacific saving at least a year in the war against Japan.

Midway gave the U.S. tremendous momentum to go after Japan, it secured the supply routes to Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomons, which allowed the U.S. to mount the invasion of Guadalcanal, and by putting all 6 fleet carriers out of the action made it impossible for Japan to repel the invasion or hold the island.

Remember the Battle of New Guinea (23 January 1942-Aug. 1945), was already in progress when Midway took place (4-7 June 1942) and Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942 Feb 1943) with out the sea lanes to Australia sending supples to support the Battle of New Guinea, and Guadialcanal, the whole situation in the Pacific would have drastically changed.

The lose of it's 4 fleet carriers to the Japanese in the battle of Midway was the pivotal point in the Pacific War, add to that the fact that the other 2 were out of action due to the Battle of the Coral Sea, put Midway as the most critical battle of the war.

 

such a decent choice of words.

->

if somebody of the mods should follow your advice, then they´ll see who was going off-topic. and the first thing they´ll tell you, is to stop your endless use of the word "fuck".

nationalistic ignorance ... but explaining you those things would be off-topic, aye !?


ps:

that´s rich coming from you

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No, what ticks me off is that this thread is made for the specific purpose of debating which battle of the Pacific war Midway or Guadalcanal had the msot strategic effect on the eventual victory.

Than this guy comes in whining how all Americans are nationalistic braggers that do nothing but revel in our own glory. Not only is it insulting, idiotic, and false, but this guy obviously did not even read the very first post before spouting out some sort of speech how all Americans are selfish jerks.

And yah, you know what I know Im a prick, but you know what? It takes a special kind of prick to enter a situation not only with no awareness of what is going on but to go on with the intention of never understanding it.

Tell me,

How does that support the original purpose of this thread? Hell, it's trolling by any definition, trying to provoke a reaction and derail the topic. He did not come in here with any intention to add something to the topic but rather to not only derail it but to hijack this thread as some sort of American slam fest.

Hah, when have I displayed nationalistic arrogance? I have said time and time again that I am not trying to make it seem like America deserves all the credit. But for some reason neither of you seem to be aware of that fact.

What? Am I supposed to praise Britain or Russia for WW2 every time I want to talk about it? Not a chance in hell, if Im talking about the eastern front than why in the world would I give credit to the Americans and British sinking U-boats later in the war? Yah, sure it happened, but it had no bearing on the current discussion.

We are talking about which battle, Midway or Guadalcanal, was the decisive battle of the Pacific war and this guy comes in here not only to intentionally derail this thread but to hijack it and use it as some sort of American Slamfest.

 

Right... Do you think the quality of Russian troops was anything to be proud about? Hell, the individual Russian soldier out of the soldiers of every other major waring power in WWII was by far the lowest. They threw soldiers into that conflict as quickly as they could be taught how to load and shoot a rifle.

There was the occasional division that was well supplied and trained, but those were rare.

Stories about how there would be three Russian soldiers in a group with only one carrying the rifle is common. The second that one with the rifle dies another picks it up, after he dies the last guy picks him up. That means that out of those soldiers it would be common to have regiments where only 33% of soldiers were even armed.

I am not saying that the American soldiers were superior out of arrogance, IM SAYING IT OUT OF COMMON SENSE.

And the fact is that the US had some of the best training programs throughout the role, that fact is indesputable. If you have a combat veteran most other nations would put them in squads with other vets and than throw them into the conflict, and eventually they would die. The US commonly took them back home and had them train other soldiers. By late 1944 if you compared an American soldier fresh from training and any other soldier from another country fresh out of training, the American soldier was easily in the 80th to 90th percentile. It's not nationalistic pride, it's common fact. For example, by the beginning of the war against Japan the Japanese pilots were far superior to the American pilots, by the beginning of 1943 that scale was more in the favor of the US and by 1944 American pilots were far superior to Japanese pilots.

You seem to completely mix up the difference between blind nationalistic pride and common fact.

 

Now can we get back to the subject of this debate?

Which battle was more decisive to the Pacific war? Midway or Guadalcanal

 

Oh stop getting into a hissy fit. You’re making a massive jump from me accusing Americans of being self-obsessed to me accusing Americans that they are all “pricks”, that’s a little crude don’t you think?

I’m part of the collective sheep? Then what are you? Every forum I’ve ever frequented in my entire life is choc-a-block full of Americans arguing about the Pacific War, or how the USMC is the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen because they managed to defeat an army of mal nourished fanatics with little to no strategic insight, inferior technology and inferior man power. The Eastern Front is largely forgotten in the West, lest we forget!

I agree with you that I hijacked this thread, so what; it doesn’t detract from my argument one bit.

What bias? Are you saying that 70% of all combat casualties did not occur on the Eastern Front? Or that “epic” battles like that of Iwo Jima or Peleliu were not standard engagements on the Eastern Front? I’m sick of this focus on America’s achievements during WW2. I am FULLY aware that the 20th century for all intents and purposes belonged to America and I do not deny that America is a great country with incredible feats to its name but I cannot sit here and have all the attention of the last great war focused on a side show to the main event. What if, for your entire life, the only movies on the American Revolutionary War you ever saw were based on the exploits of Lafayette? Even as an non-American you would see that this unnecessary focus on events of secondary value were betraying the importance of the larger aspects of the conflict.

I do think Russia won the war in Europe on its own; evidently they had little impact on the other theatres. To argue that the Imperial Japanese military was on par with the industrial powerhouse of the Soviet Union is ABSURD, the Soviets had more men, more tanks, more artillery and of far better design and most importantly held a radically different strategic and tactical approach to the war. Japan never produced a general on par with Zhukov, and if anyone resorted to mass human wave attacks it was the Japs not the Soviets.

As I said, if you have a penchant for naval battles over land then it’s understandable you would have a greater urge to study the Pacific War, but I don’t think that’s what you are getting at.

The Soviets were an army of sheep led by lions, the Japs were an army of lions led by sheep. Tell me what's the deadlier?