https://www.facebook.com/USPacificFleet/videos/10159185622247970
Pacific Turning Point: Midway or Guadalcanal
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I found this site which covers this topic in great lengths. What’s your thoughts?
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midway
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Midway.
The war was already turned THERE before Guadalcanal.
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i chose midway, but Dec 7th was the turning point for japan
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I chose Guadalcanal, the Battle of Santa Cruz finished off Japan’s elilte air crews.
Guadalcanal did to Japan’s land bases air crews what Midway did to Japan’s carrier fleet. Japan lost 700 land based aircraft, 38 ships and 31,000 men.
Japan had six months to dislodge a single U.S Marine Division, that had questionable navy support, and could not do so.
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The article was a good read; and it persuaded me the case for Guadalcanal was stronger than I’d realized. However, I still voted for Midway.
One of the arguments the article made was that even after Midway, Japan still had a commanding advantage in non-carrier surface ships. A portion of those ships were lost at Guadalcanal.
However, naval losses at Guadalcanal were fairly even. The U.S. lost a fleet carrier and a light carrier, and six heavy cruisers. Japan lost a light carrier and only three heavy cruisers, but it also lost two battleships. If the total combat value of Japan’s Pacific fleet was, say, 100, and the U.S.'s was 60, and if each side’s fleet received -20 during that battle, then to me it’s not a turning point.
However, the Japanese Army lost over ten times as many men during the land battle as did the Americans. The Japanese also lost over twice as many aircrew, even though each side lost about as many aircraft as the other. As the article noted, Japan lacked the capacity to replace large numbers of pilots. But as the article also noted, Japan lost a year’s worth of carrier pilots at the Battle of Midway. (Losses at Midway were “at least” 90 veteran pilots, with Japan training about 100 carrier pilots a year.)
The Pacific War between the U.S. and Japan was primarily about control of the skies above the oceans. After the Battle of Midway, the U.S. had the stronger carrier force in the local area, but the Japanese had a much stronger non-carrier surface fleet. A fleet which proceeded to retreat, on the theory that it could not stand up to the local U.S. carriers unless it had strong carrier support of its own. The core of the Pacific war was the air war, and the core of the air war was the carrier war. The turning point of that carrier war was at Midway.
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Marines fighting over dirt, PALES in comparsion to fleets fighting over area’s of operation. Â IMO anways, and certainly at the Axis and Allies level.:P
Case in point… a Midway that goes sideways for the Allies, could quite possible could mean, a Guadalcanal that never happens.
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Marines fighting over dirt, PALES in comparsion to fleets fighting over area’s of operation. IMO anways, and certainly at the Axis and Allies level.:P
Case in point… a Midway that goes sideways for the Allies, could quite possible could mean, a Guadalcanal that never happens.
I can’t argue with this.
Japan’s army lost 25,000 men during the Guadalcanal campaign. Japan’s army numbered in the millions, so the loss of 25,000 soldiers was not any sort of “turning point.”
However, the exchange rate in the land battle was more than 10:1 in the U.S.'s favor. That one-sided exchange rate revealed deep-seated flaws in the Japanese army’s equipment, doctrine, and tactics. But those flaws had been present long before Guadalcanal, and would persist long after it was over. From a psychological perspective the battle may have felt like a turning point, because it was a chance for both sides to learn how over matched the Japanese Army was by its American counterpart. But that realization was bound to set in whenever the two sides fought each other in a serious land battle.
As you pointed out, the relative effectiveness of Japan’s and America’s armies mattered a lot less in the Pacific War than did the effectiveness of their navies; and specifically of their carrier fleets. However, Japan’s problems with its army–and with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps–represented a serious threat to its empire. Japan’s Kwangtung Army had most of its heavy equipment shipped away, so that the equipment could be used by Japanese forces engaged against Americans. By the time the Soviets invaded Manchuria in 1945, the Kwangtung Army was a shell of its former self.
When the Soviets invaded Manchuria in 1945, it was seen by both sides as a prelude for what a Soviet invasion of the Japanese home islands might have been like. Rapid Soviet success persuaded Japan’s leaders they could not stand up to that invasion. They surrendered their country to the United States instead, thereby escaping the horror of Soviet occupation.
To make a long story short, I agree with your post, and with your point that the loss of Japan’s carriers and their pilots at Midway mattered a lot more than the loss of less than 1% of its army at Guadalcanal. But it should also be remembered that Japan could not afford for either its army or navy to fail. Both did.
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One answer to ABWorsham’s question would be to say that Midway was the turning point in the Central Pacific theatre of operations (which was the theatre for which Nimitz and the Navy were primarily responsible) and that Guadalcanal was the turning point in the South West Pacific theatre of operations (which was the theatre for which MacArthur and the Army were primarily responsible).
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Let’s not forget that the Japanese in a last ditch attempt to gain air control over Guadalcanal sent most of their carrier aircraft to Rabaul in use of land operations.
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I would say the tide had started to turn at the battle of the coral sea where zuikaku and shokaku were knocked out of action and kept from midway. With 24 Essex class carriers that would eventually enter the war Japan needed to win huge lopsided victories to have a shot so losing 3 carriers at midway was obviously a disaster. If zuikaku and shokaku were in action and Japan had 6 carriers for midway perhaps the results would have been none lost for the Japanese and 3 for the americans.
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US Intellegence had improved dramatically between the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway.
The combination of Yorktown’s
1 Coral Sea survival,
2 return to Pearl Harbor, and
3 feverish rapid repair work by the yard workersenabled her meeting up with other forces for the Decisive victory at Midway.
#3 is very important not only since the Japanese pilots reported her already sunk at Coral Sea but also because initial repair estimates were around 3 months of dock time repairs to be sea worthy.
#3 is considered a providential miracle.
Yorktown was finally sunk in that battle.
But the balance by then had already shifted away from the IJN.
The Almighty had knit together a victory for the Americans that day from threads back to Dec 7 and beyond.The keels of each major US ship in the Midway battle were all laid prior to WWII.
US Carriers and naval fighter planes participating in subsequent battles were products of our increasing wartime industrial production.
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The decisive battle wasn’t really won until “the great marianas Turkey shoot”
The only early war carrier the USN still had (IJN had sunk the rest) was the enterprise but the introduction of the essex class carriers in large numbers had made their navy larger then ever.
The IJN still had
Taiho (new)
Shokaku
Zuikaku
Junyo
Zuihowhich were all good carriers (there was a bunch of lighter ones as well in the battle).
Plus the introduction of the Jill Torpedo bomber and the Judy (an improvement on the val).
Even though the elite air crews were rarer thanks to midway and guadacanal there still was elite personal available at the phillipine battle infact it was mostly these elite people who survived it while the newer pilots and crew got massacred.
The point is that even at the phillipines battle the IJN was still a force to be reckoned with and had better numbers and units then they did at Midway. It was the absolute destruction of carriers and especially planes at this battle which was the decisive one in the conflict which led to leyte gulf where the IJN carriers were empty decoys.
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Marines fighting over dirt, PALES in comparsion to fleets fighting over area’s of operation. � IMO anways, and certainly at the Axis and Allies level.:P
Case in point… a Midway that goes sideways for the Allies, could quite possible could mean, a Guadalcanal that never happens.
I agree with Gar on this one. Without the win at Midway the invasion of Guadalcanal would not have been attempted when it was.
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Midway of course!
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Midway. The carriers were irreplaceable.
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Midway!
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As a navy guy, when we say fleets, please keep in mind that the fleets never saw each other, and this is not only THE turning point in the Pacific, but a historical first, and why we have our “super carriers” of today. This is also why missing the carriers by a week in Pearl Harbor in concert with the fuel tanks was COSTLY for Japan.
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As a navy guy, when we say fleets, please keep in mind that the fleets never saw each other, and this is not only THE turning point in the Pacific, but a historical first.
Actually, the first naval engagement in which the opposing fleets never saw each other was the Battle of the Coral Sea, which took place shortly before Midway.
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ack…you’re right…should have fact checked it before looking dumb…too late!
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