Well said, freightdawg. I think Midway for the Japanese was a lot like Gettysburg for the South in the Civil War. It didn't mean the fighting was over or even close to being over, but it meant they had lost the iniative...for good...and would be forced to fight on the defensive from then on. Fighting on the defensive is a big problem, because it allows the other side the freedom to hit you where and when they please...so you're always reacting to events forced upon you rather than setting the agenda. This didn't work very well for Robert E. Lee, although he won a few more defensive battles, and it worked even less well for the Japanese, though they also won some more naval battles here and there around Guadalcanal. In Eastern Europe Stalingrad served the same purpose as regards the Germans. They also won some battles after Stalingrad, but they never again gained the initiative. It had passed to the Allies, on all fronts.

The loss of the 4 big carriers at Midway was tremendously more important than the loss of any battleship. The only thing about the sinking of the Yamato in 1945 that stands out is this: it was the last offensive sortie by the Japanese Navy, and it was a suicide mission. The Yamato and her escorts were outnumbered about 30 or 40 to one in ships, had no air cover, and the Yamato had only enough fuel in her tanks to reach the enormous American invasion fleet off Okinawa...not enough to come back home afterward. Needless to say, they were not planning to come home. 2400 men on the Yamato knew they were going to almost certain death, and they did it with typical Japanese fatalism. It was a final gesture of honor, nothing more. The Army generals had been quite contemptuous of the Navy's helplessness following Leyte Gulf in '44, and the Navy decided to show that at least they were not afraid to die...thus saving some face. It's very sad that people would feel compelled to do such things...kind of like that hopeless charge of the cavalry of Gondor in the last LOTR movie.

"We who are about to die salute you."

In return for losing the 64,000 ton Yamato, a light cruiser, several destroyers, and several thousand men the Japanese AA gunners shot down a handful of American carrier airplanes. They had been swarmed over by several hundred of them in the hour and a half it took the Yamato to die.

I'm glad that Lee's ragged Army of Northern Virginia was not similarly massacred at Appommatox on the day of their final surrender. If Phil Sheridan had had his way, they would have been. Fortunately, General Grant stopped that from happening. Thank God! (Have been reading Jeff Shaara's book 'The Last Full Measure'. Great book. I have to say this...Sheridan was a very effectice commander, excellent at winning battles, and he was also a bloodthirsty, arrogant little bastard.)

- LH