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双方海上编队在炮火射程外以舰载机实施突击。日本损失航母4艘、飞机285架。双方海上战斗编队在炮火射程之外以航空兵实施突击，宣告以战列舰为主力的巨舰“大炮主义”已成历史。空海一体战开始主导海上战场。
Japan had been highly successful in swiftly securing its initial war goals, including the conquest of the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) with its vital resources. As such, preliminary planning for a second phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942. However, because of strategic differences between the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy, as well as infighting between the Navy’s GHQ and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet, the formulation of effective strategy was hampered, and the follow-up strategy was not finalized until April 1942.


Admiral Yamamoto succeeded in winning a bureaucratic struggle, placing his operational concept—further operations in the Central Pacific—ahead of other contending plans. These included operations either directly or indirectly aimed at Australia and into the Indian Ocean. In the end, Yamamoto’s thinly-veiled threat to resign unless he got his way carried his agenda forward.



Yamamoto’s primary strategic concern was the elimination of America’s remaining carrier forces, which he perceived as the principal obstacle to the overall Pacific campaign.This concern was acutely heightened by the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo (18 April 1942) by USAAF B-25s launched from USS Hornet. The raid, while militarily insignificant, was a severe psychological shock to the Japanese and showed the existence of a gap in the defenses around the Japanese home islands.Sinking America’s aircraft carriers and seizing Midway, the only strategic islands besides Hawaii in the eastern Pacific, was seen as the only means of nullifying this threat.



Yamamoto reasoned an operation against the main carrier base at Pearl Harbor would induce the U.S. to fight. However, given the strength of American land-based air power on Hawaii, he judged the powerful American base could not be attacked directly.Instead, he selected Midway, at the extreme northwest end of the Hawaiian Island chain, some 1,300 miles (2,100 km) from Oahu. Midway was not especially important in the larger scheme of Japan’s intentions, but the Japanese felt the Americans would consider Midway a vital outpost of Pearl Harbor and would therefore strongly defend it.The U.S. did consider Midway vital; after the battle, establishment of a U.S. submarine base on Midway allowed submarines operating from Pearl Harbor to refuel and reprovision, extending their radius of operations by 1,200 miles (1,900 km). An airstrip on Midway served as a forward staging point for bomber attacks on Wake Island.

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