travel

A visit to Midway

photos by Bill Fall

The decisive naval battle of the Pacific theater of World War II didn't actually take place on the Midway Islands for which it was named. In early June of 1942 the US and Japanese navies did battle around Midway, with the people on the ships involved largely unable to see one another. But the planes from the respective forces' aircraft carriers did see and engage their enemies. Admiral Chester Nimitz faced down Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, the latter with a larger force (three Japanese carriers to the Americans' three, and a bigger support fleet) but with the Americans having US Army Air Force planes based on Midway to throw into the battle. The Japanese sank the USS Yorktown and badly battered the rest of the American fleet, but the American planes sank all four of Japan's carriers.

After that, US industry decisively smashed Japan, replacing what was lost and turning out ever more and ever better ships and aircraft while Japanese industry was progressively hampered by the Allies' blockade stopping the flow of fuel and raw materials and ultimately by bombing raids. The Japanese Navy never recovered from its Midway losses.

Still, more than three years of the most ferocious warfare lay ahead, which ended only after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the even more deadly firebombing of Tokyo.

For many years after the war Midway was a US naval base, but the Navy left it 1997 and now the low-lying atoll with no fresh water or native human population is a wildlife refuge, home to the world's largest population of gooney birds, more properly known as Laysan Albatrosses. The three islands and lagoon that are Midway also have large populations of Black Footed Albatrosses, Frigate Birds, Boobie Birds, and Terns. Canaries that were imported and released there have also thrived.