# WWII: Battle of Midway...why couldn't the Japanese have pressed on and captured the island?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 1, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029 "2020-08-01T22:36:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/21 "2020-08-03T16:46:02Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#):
>
> maybe bomb the snot out of Pearl Harbor again
Was Pearl Harbor within range of WWII bombers of the time flying round-trip from Midway? The Pacific Ocean is really big, while Midway was closer than anything else it wasn’t close to Hawaii.
Could bombers make the round-trip back then? (I really do not know.)
---
### Author:  [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/22 "2020-08-03T16:55:50Z")
They’re on carriers. Sail near where they launched the strike last time. What’s going to stop them?
---
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/23 "2020-08-03T18:00:08Z")
Land based aircraft in Hawaii.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/24 "2020-08-03T18:02:10Z")
1,486 mi Midway to Hawaii. Range of Betty Bomber is 2,158 mi.
---
### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/25 "2020-08-03T18:04:17Z")
So that would be a no.
Japanese bombers could not make a round-trip between Midway and Hawaii. Not even close.
I don’t think aerial refueling was a thing yet in WWII.
---
### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/26 "2020-08-03T18:11:58Z")
Those numbers look wrong.
Midway Island to Pearl Harbor 1,074 miles
Range of the Mitsubishi G3M 2,700 miles
The Betty is Mitsubishi G4M is listed at 2158 miles but I’ve seen longer ranges also. Ranges over 3000 miles.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/27 "2020-08-03T18:14:13Z")
Well, the Nell had a range of 2,700 miles, still not enuf but the Kawanishi H8K flying boat had a range of 4,444 miles, and could carry 4,400 lb of bombs.
They were working on several 4 engine bombers, such as the **Nakajima G5N _Shinzan_**.
---
### Author:  [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/28 "2020-08-03T18:17:13Z")
Enough to stop a 4 carrier raid? With the defenders flying, what? Wildcats? Or Lightnings? Maybe. Augmenting the attack with Midway-based Betty’s would be interesting, albeit I’m not sure how feasible.
It’d be interesting if the _Yamato_ SAG decided they wanted to get in some shore bombardment too.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/29 "2020-08-03T18:18:39Z")
OK, maybe you got a better distance. Yet another cite shows 1,312 _miles_. Wierd.
---
### Author:  [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/30 "2020-08-03T18:20:33Z")
Hickam to Sand Island field is [1,309 miles](http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=HIK-MDY):
---
### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/31 "2020-08-03T18:25:07Z")
Well, we can nitpick over miles the bombers could make but fighters would not be able to manage it at all and surely Hawaii would have fighter support ASAP. With US radar Japanese long range bombers would never have a chance at bombing Hawaii.
But they would certainly be a thorn in the US side.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/32 "2020-08-03T18:59:29Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> But they would certainly be a thorn in the US side.
I wouldn’t think so. The island would be almost impossible to keep supplied. Not without committing a large part of the IJN to the operation. They would end up just like Wake.
---
### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/33 "2020-08-03T21:39:53Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> Why can’t they land on the side with no reef?
No such side. The reef extends almost entirely around the atoll and it is not naturally very accessible to boats. To get larger boats into harbour, a channel had to be cut (blasted) in the reef and a harbour dredged. This was done in the late 1930s when it became apparent some defense against the Japanese may be required. So, there was but a single way to get troop transports close enough to land them and the approach was well defended.
They could try to force that channel, with likely heavy losses. Otherwise, I suppose they could have tried having troops swim ashore but they probably wouldn’t have gotten far laden with all their gear.
At Normandy, the Allies had a few benefits that helped with the landings that would not have been the case at Midway for the Japanese, such as a good number of German reinforcements waiting at Calais instead of Normandy, massive naval bombardment to soften defenses, a fair amount of practice at forced landings from their campaign in the Mediterranean, months of planning and logistics, uncertainty on the part of the Germans on where to defend, etc. The Germans (except maybe Hitler) themselves realized this as well in reverse - they weren’t close at any point in the war to forcing landings in the UK and would have been cut to pieces had they tried.
---
### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/34 "2020-08-04T11:22:40Z")
> [@txtumbleweed](#):
>
> I’m not entirely sure the Japanese could have taken Midway even if they had sunk the three US carriers and lost none of their own.
>
> The Japanese invasion plan was to land some 5000 troops from the Army and the Navy without specialized landing equipment and without any real naval gunfire support doctrine. The troops were primarily armed with rifles, light mortars, and medium machine guns. There was no reserve.
>
> There is no evidence that these troops had practiced large scale operations together, much less rehearsed the landing. Specialized landing craft like the later American DUKW and tracked landing vehicles were never developed by the Japanese. I can’t imagine that the Japanese had even dreamed of them by this point in the war.
>
> The American forces were about 3600 Marines and other support personnel who were well dug-in. They had a platoon of A3 Stuart tanks in support. Heavy weapons included five 5" guns, four 3" guns, twelve 3" AA guns, forty-eight .50 cal guns, thirty-six .30 cal guns. There was an AA unit attached as well with another dozen or so weapons of 3", 37mm, and 20mm size.
>
> Midway is surrounded by a coral reef through which one boat channel, covered by the heavy guns, had been blasted. The Japanese plan was to use their _daihatsu_ barges to land troops on the reef instead of forcing the channel. From there the troops would have to wade about 200 yards through waters ranging from ankle to chest deep to reach the beach.
>
> I am not sure that any Japanese soldier would have survived to make it to the beach. Wading through 200 yards of water ranging from ankle to chest deep or so? The lagoon would have flowed red with blood.
>
> As for actually holding Midway, or even sticking around long enough to blockade it, **OttoDaFE** is right on the money for the difficulties the main IJN force would have faced.
>
> Without a reserve, there was no way a second landing could be attempted. Despite the damage done to the their air wings, Task Force 16 (_Hornet_ and _Enterprise_) still had plenty of dive bombers that had proven against _Mikuma_ and _Mogami_ that they were quite capable of wrecking capital ships.
There is an excellent analysis of Japan’s chances in the appendix to Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan B. Parshall, of the [combinedfleet.com](http://combinedfleet.com) fame which shows how spot you are, and he also agrees the Japanese wouldn’t have had a chance.
There are a few details which I found interesting.
In the text of the book, it shows that the numbers were actually worse, with only 2,500 troops for the assault itself with the other personnel being construction personnel and other jobs after the islands were taken. This was against 3,000 to 4,500 US personnel, the majority of them were marines trained in combat.
Parshall notes that daihatsu barges would have to land of the farther side of the reef, meaning that the Japanese troops would also have to cross it as well before wading into the lagoon.
In addition to the weapons listed in this excellent post, there were four seven-inch guns emplaced on the southern shores of Sand and Eastern Islands. The bombing by the Japanese had not taken out any of the heavy guns nor had it degraded the real defensive capacity of the Marine defenders.
Parshall believes that that while the Imperial Navy could have continued to bombard the place after the failed invasion, there wasn’t anything further they have done, resulting in a standoff until they were forced to withdraw because of their lack of logistics.
---
### Author:  [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/35 "2020-08-04T13:49:43Z")
Couldn’t the IJN have used their battleships to destroy all the American defenses and then land their soldiers?
---
### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/36 "2020-08-04T13:59:09Z")
> [@puddleglum](#):
>
> Couldn’t the IJN have used their battleships to destroy all the American defenses and then land their soldiers
Not without airsupport from their carriers. The USN still had functional aircraft carriers with aircraft that could attack the battleships unopposed. Plus they still had the airfield on Midway itself. Fresh aircraft and crews could have staged on Midway and feed the carriers with supplies while they chased down the IJN fleet. It would have been suicide for the IJN to even attempt.Sometimes doubling down on a bet means doubling your loses. A reality some in leadership positions still don’t get.
---
### Author:  [@txtumbleweed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txtumbleweed)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/37 "2020-08-04T14:10:59Z")
Parshall is such a great resource on the IJN and his research has helped flesh out questions regarding the narrative and analysis of Midway for a long time. If you have the other books about Midway, then **Shattered Sword** is a must add to that collection.
In the back of my closet is an old strategy board game called “Victory in the Pacific,” one of those with a million pieces and very simplistic mechanics to play out the Pacific War. It didn’t take but that first game to gain an appreciation of the challenges Japan faced economically and strategically. The Japanese side starts with better ships (due mainly to the excellent torpedoes) but that’s their only advantage. The dozen or so Japanese ships added throughout the game cannot compare with the higher quality ships being rapidly added by the dozens to the American forces.
It also started thinking about the forces at Midway. Gaming it out, the forces at point of contact were pretty equally matched and it was about a 50/50 proposition for both sides. Success came down to who won the reconnaissance and initiative rolls. If playing the American side, the only bad move was to seek a surface engagement where Japan’s torpedo bonuses could make a difference.
The landing mechanics were pretty simple, too, and you could come away thinking that all you had to do was drive off the enemy navy and land your forces, but years of Risk and other war games showed that was a bit too simplistic. Want to feel confident about winning? Better have at least 3-1 to do it.
Someone above mentioned Tarawa and that’s an apt comparison. The Americans had the tracked landing craft to get to the beach and overwhelming troops (I think the US had about 20000 Marines vs 5000 Japanese troops), yet still suffered some 3000 casualties taking the island. I think Peleliu and Iwo Jima were even worse.
Successful invasions are all about shoving people into the beachhead faster than the other guys can kill them and at Midway Island the Japanese didn’t have enough troops nor the ability to feed them fast enough into the meat grinder.
> [@puddleglum](#):
>
> Couldn’t the IJN have used their battleships to destroy all the American defenses and then land their soldiers?
Part of the issue at places like Tarawa was that the Navy was still learning what made an effective bombardment. It was there (or another landing) that they began to realize that the low trajectory fire from ships didn’t do all that much damage when troops were dug in. That’s not to say the shells weren’t destructive, but against armored or concrete positions the rounds tended to skip off them because they were coming in too shallow. You could blast the hell out of an airfield, but you couldn’t take out defenses as well as everyone thought. New and refurbished ships had their main guns adapted to allow higher elevations and trajectories. It was that big change to gunfire support doctrine that helped make American bombardments effective later in the war.
---
### Author:  [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/38 "2020-08-04T14:37:53Z")
To add to the discussion about the battleships destroying the Marine defenses, bear in mind that the Japanese — both Army and Navy — shelled the bejeezus out of (non-fortified) Henderson Field on Guadalcanal on a regular basis and never put it out of action for longer than it took to fill the craters. I read once that some Marines got so used to the shelling that they got nervous when it was too quiet.
And it’s debatable whether the battleships could be redeployed before the aforementioned logistics forced the IJN to withdraw. They were hundreds of miles away, since their purpose was to finish off the US fleet rather than to bombard Midway.
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/39 "2020-08-04T18:47:56Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> IRC, this was in part due to Pearl Harbor regret. Yamamoto regretted not having ordered an additional strike wave at Pearl which could have achieved highly important damage on the US Navy,
That was not Yamamoto’s decision. It was Chiuchi Nagumo’s decision. Yamamoto agreed, but after the fact, and there is no evidence Yamamoto regretted that decision.
As to why they didn’t press on to attack Midway, first of all, the Japanese could not be sure how badly mauled the U.S. air assets were. Secondly, and more importantly, **Midway wasn’t the point**. The entire Japanese plan was not to take Midway, but to destroy the American carriers; Midway was chosen as a target to draw the carriers into a place they knew they would be. It was the American carriers that represented a continued threat to the IJN in the south Pacific, that had embarrassed them with the Doolittle raid, and that had stopped the Japanese offensive in the Coral Sea. They needed to destroy the carriers. Once they lost their carriers, that was impossible. Risking other capital ships to take some dinky atoll wasn’t worth the risk.
---
### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029/40 "2020-08-04T19:26:05Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Secondly, and more importantly, **Midway wasn’t the point**. The entire Japanese plan was not to take Midway, but to destroy the American carriers; Midway was chosen as a target to draw the carriers into a place they knew they would be
I thought the Americans found out about Midway by code breaking. Midway radioed in the clear that their seawater distillation device was broken, and Japanese radioed in code, “A7 (or whatever their designation for Midway) is low on water”. How did the Japanese plan for the carriers to be lured to Midway?
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-battle-of-midway-why-couldnt-the-japanese-have-pressed-on-and-captured-the-island/917029.md?page=3)