The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4â7 June 1942, six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, ChÅ«ichi Nagumo, and Nobutake KondÅ near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that rendered their aircraft carriers irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare”, while naval historian Craig Symonds called it “one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential”.
Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle. The four Japanese fleet carriersâAkagi, Kaga, SÅryÅ« and HiryÅ«, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlierâwere sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann, while the carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet survived the battle fully intact.
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