The Battle
The Battle began with air attacks launched by American forces on June 3 in the afternoon. Although many bombs were dropped at this time, none were reported to have caused severe damage to the Japanese. Later, the U.S. successfully torpedoed a Japanese ship, which would be the first and only successful air torpedo attack from the U.S. during this battle. The Japanese responded by bombing Midway, which caused the U.S. to suffer many airplane losses, leaving only two planes flyable. The U.S. forces quickly jumped back into the battle and launched more air raids on the Japanese which drew the Japanese air forces out of position and ran them out of fuel. This was a very important factor to the battle because the Japanese were quickly running out of resources and had no where to turn. Not only were the Japanese air forces being dismantled, but also their naval forces. During the air raid, the U.S. destroyed many of the Japanese ships and they were left with very little to fight with. However, the Japanese did not want to give up and they decided to attack back once again. This time, they only had one aircraft carrier and they quickly sent out their first wave of dive bombers. The U.S. was able to repair the damage from the first wave of dive bombers so quickly that when the second wave of Japanese forces came, they believed they were attacking a different ship when it was really the same. This mistaken attack led to a boost in morale for the Japanese forces, but they later realized their big mistake which attributed to their loss. The U.S. forces continued to fight against the Japanese in order to protect Midway and to assure that they had won the battle. Overall, the U.S. forces would prove to be greater than the Japanese and they were declared the winners of the Battle of Midway.