Did Midway provide the strategic opportunity Japan sought?

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Accepted answer

As long as the US was willing to keep fighting, nothing would have been strategically decisive for Japan. Quoting from this page that explores a Japanese victory at Midway:

In other words, even if it had lost catastrophically at the Battle of Midway, the United States Navy still would have broken even with Japan in carriers and naval air power by about September 1943. Nine months later, by the middle of 1944, the U.S. Navy would have enjoyed a nearly two-to-one superiority in carrier aircraft capacity!

Upvote:4

By no means, the Midway provided IJA especially Imperial Japanese Ground Army with such "strategic opportunity". Why? Because Imperial Japanese Navy lied even to the Imperial Japanese Ground Army that they had won the battle. This page says,

大本営陸軍報道部・海軍報道部は上から下ってきた報告を各自そのまま報道し、お互いの戦果の実情は全くわかっていませんでした。

Translated

Each headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Ground Army and Imperial Japanese Navy announced their result of battle at their own will respectively, so that the "truth" was unknowable even to each other.


1942(昭和17)年6月7日、米側の短波放送がミッドウェーで大戦果をあげたという報道に、陸軍報道部では動揺が広まりましたが、海軍の方からは何の連絡も入って来ませんでした。

Translated

On 7th June, 1942, the Japanese Ground Army caught the shortwave radio announcement by the U.S that the U.S had made a great victory at the battle of Midway and the waves of shock spread among them, but there was no report coming from the very Japanese Imperial Navy.


6月11日になり、海軍部はやっとミッドウェーで大勝利したと発表しています。ところがこれは大敗北だったのであり、海軍はこれを隠蔽していたので国民はもちろん、陸軍報道部員さえ真相はよくわかりませんでした。

Translated

On 11th June, several days after the war, the headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Navy announced officially they had won the battle. But the truth is it was a disaster, the JIN concealed to Japanese people even including the staffs of Japanese Ground Army.

Thus there is no way, Japanese Imperial Navy gained "what they were looking for", but it became a complete confusion to all of the people even including the Japanese Ground Army, and this "practice" will continue until the end of the war.

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