The Battle of Midway turned the tide in the Pacific
On this day · 4 June 1942
On June 4, 1942, American dive bombers sank four Japanese aircraft carriers in a single day and broke Japan's momentum in the Pacific.
On June 4, 1942, U.S. Navy aircraft attacked a Japanese fleet near Midway Atoll and, in a matter of hours, fatally crippled three of its aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu, with SBD Dauntless dive bombers from the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown.
The fourth Japanese carrier, Hiryu, struck back, leaving Yorktown burning, but it too was found and bombed into a wreck before nightfall. By the time the battle closed on June 7, Japan had lost all four of its attacking fleet carriers and roughly 3,000 men, against American losses of one carrier and about 360 men.
Four carriers, gone in a day.
Midway is widely called the turning point of the Pacific war. The loss of those carriers stripped Japan of its offensive striking power and shifted the initiative to the United States, which began the long campaign of island-hopping toward Japan.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
