THE BATTLE OF MIDAWY MIDWAY
THE BEGINNING
(Taken from "I gladiatori del mare" di Angelo Solmi, Rizzoli 1980)
Five months later the beginning of the Japanese war operations against the United States and the lnghilterra, to the first of May of 1942, an atmosphere of euphoria reigned in Japan.
The ships, the troops and the aerial nipponicis had won everywhere, often almost without hit to hurt. The adversaries had been pulverized, ridiculed: what was it waited, therefore, to invade Australia, India, Ceylon, the Hawaii, the United States same? America and England were not but a b[uff: the very feared western they seemed some puppets in front of the warriors of the Rising Sol. This climate of thrilling drunkenness had its center especially in the harbor nipponica, driven by the admiral Yamamoto: it was that that had brought the most uproarious successes, to Pearl Harbor, in Malesia (sinking the great cruiseliners English Prince of Wa[es and Repu[se), in the sea of Giava, wherever.
The biggest lost war unity till now from Yamamoto you/he/she had been a destroyer. Who pushed more to formulate ambitious plans of attack and invasion it was the captain of vessel Sadatoshi Tomioka, head of the operations of the harbor; who preserved still a crumb of moderation they were some eminent heads of the army, among which the head of S.M. general Sugiyama and the head of the operations H actors. But for the officers of the harbor any objection to a rapids conquest of the universe constituted more or less a betrayal.
Truth is that to Tòkyò, all taken as they were from the thrilling triumphs, nobody seemed to have set the question of the why', until then, United States and Great Britain were revealed so weak, above all on their favorite ground: the sea. If someone had done him you/he/she would not have delayed to discover that both the great western powers had chosen the politics to attach first Germany in Europe, defending himself/herself/itself in Asia and in the Pacific, for then to pass here to receives her/it with all the means allowed by their industrial potential and by their experience. You/he/she would also have reached perhaps the conclusion that the Japanese ships (aircraft carrier, armors, cruisers) they were not invulnerable, and that those Americans seemed of alone butter to the excited militarists.
The Japanese harbor had been able to count on the surprise, on the smallness of the fleet avversaria the busy one elsewhere, but the technicians would have owed well to know that the ships nipponiches were everything anything else other than deprived of defects and, moreover, once stricken, they didn't have behind of if yards able to put again her in sixth, because the first subjects being gradually went scarce. Above all, in Japan, you/they would have had to reflect that the country, in fact of industrial potentiality, it was as 1 to 10 to the United States. For these last ones a ship, also great, lost, it was not anything or almost, because you/they would have been able her to replace with other more powerful persons in construction: for Japan to lose a great ship was a tragedy, jackets it would not have received some change.
That same technicians would have had besides to know that, even if to the officers and the crews it didn't make certain defect the personal courage and the tenacity, quite a lot of they was professionally less prepared in comparison to the Americans, because, after all, from half century Japan didn't do whether to copy or to imitate the Westerners, furnishing well few of original in every field: so much is true that his/her officers of harbor were almost all instructed near foreign academies. Also, almost nobody made these reasonings, and I'lmpero of the Rising Sol set out, without knowing him/it, to the downfall, really in the time of his/her greater successes. Only the admiral Isokuru Yamamoto had told one day the Prime Minister Konoye: "For one period of 6-12 months I will offer you a nonstop series of victories, but if the war prolonged him over the two years I would not have any hope anymore in the final victory ". Words what time, nevertheless, they seemed you forget. (And, then, according to others as Ito, it was not Yamamoto to pronounce her, but Dare me Nagano, head of S.M. of the - the imperial harbor).
However, under the push of the good sense of the general Sugiyama, in March the project of the direct invasion of Australia was abandoned and replaced with a 'more modest operation on Port Moresby, in New Guinea, fixed to the first of May. It was anticipated also the occupation of the Figis and Samoa and, in April, the plan of the invasion of the Midway and the Aleutian ones was launched from the admiral Yamamoto, fixed to the first of June.
MIDWAY SEEN BY JPANEESE
BATTAGLIA DI MIDWAY: FINAL SENTENCE OF SHINANO