Critical Thinking: The Battle of Midway
Military Intelligence is one of the most vital aspects of any war and is often the determining factor of the outcome. Few skirmishes in the history of the United States are more widely known than the Battle of Midway. This battle was a near perfect blending of intelligence development and application, and a major victory for the United States (Elder, 2008). The opposite is true for the Japanese Naval fleet commanded by Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto. Due to multiple failures of intelligence, the Japanese suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the United States Navy just six months after the attack at Pearl Harbor. This defeat not only stunned the Japanese military officials, but it changed the …show more content…
It was a battle that many have stated should have been an easy victory for the seemingly unstoppable Japanese Naval fleet. Admiral Yamamoto sought to trick the U.S. Navy by creating a diversion in the form of a faked attack plot against Alaska. Yamamoto hoped that the Americans would pursue, leaving the island of Midway vulnerable (Munson, 2016). What the Admiral did not know was that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American intelligence officers at Station HYPO, Hawaii broke the cryptologic JN-25 book cipher code the Japanese used (Elder, 2008). Having this gave U.S. Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz a great strategic advantage and allowed him to know of their plan before it was in motion. Rather than utilizing the faster and more effective fighting planes to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the Japanese opted to employ the Aichi E13A “Float Planes.” Yamamoto believed that the rest of his air capabilities were to only be used for direct attacks against the American ships …show more content…
If Yamamoto had access to such imagery, he could have tracked the movement of the American fleet. Having those assets would have helped the Japanese in efforts to reclaim the island of Midway, however, there is never a guarantee of victory in war. The American fleet had better tactics and they had the use of the island as an airstrip which afforded them multiple avenues of approach against the Japanese. Admiral Nimitz had access to better intelligence and a larger fleet which could have made the American victory at Midway inevitable regardless of the Japanese fleet’s efforts. Had the means existed, Computer Network Operators could have been an asset during this battle. Employing this aspect of intelligence would have helped to give the commanders a better
Military Intelligence is one of the most vital aspects of any war and is often the determining factor of the outcome. Few skirmishes in the history of the United States are more widely known than the Battle of Midway. This battle was a near perfect blending of intelligence development and application, and a major victory for the United States (Elder, 2008). The opposite is true for the Japanese Naval fleet commanded by Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto. Due to multiple failures of intelligence, the Japanese suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the United States Navy just six months after the attack at Pearl Harbor. This defeat not only stunned the Japanese military officials, but it changed the …show more content…
It was a battle that many have stated should have been an easy victory for the seemingly unstoppable Japanese Naval fleet. Admiral Yamamoto sought to trick the U.S. Navy by creating a diversion in the form of a faked attack plot against Alaska. Yamamoto hoped that the Americans would pursue, leaving the island of Midway vulnerable (Munson, 2016). What the Admiral did not know was that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American intelligence officers at Station HYPO, Hawaii broke the cryptologic JN-25 book cipher code the Japanese used (Elder, 2008). Having this gave U.S. Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz a great strategic advantage and allowed him to know of their plan before it was in motion. Rather than utilizing the faster and more effective fighting planes to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the Japanese opted to employ the Aichi E13A “Float Planes.” Yamamoto believed that the rest of his air capabilities were to only be used for direct attacks against the American ships …show more content…
If Yamamoto had access to such imagery, he could have tracked the movement of the American fleet. Having those assets would have helped the Japanese in efforts to reclaim the island of Midway, however, there is never a guarantee of victory in war. The American fleet had better tactics and they had the use of the island as an airstrip which afforded them multiple avenues of approach against the Japanese. Admiral Nimitz had access to better intelligence and a larger fleet which could have made the American victory at Midway inevitable regardless of the Japanese fleet’s efforts. Had the means existed, Computer Network Operators could have been an asset during this battle. Employing this aspect of intelligence would have helped to give the commanders a better