The Battle of Midway was a naval battle between the United States and Japan around and over the island of Midway, about 1,300 miles west of Hawaii. It was a clear US victory, sinking multiple of Japan’s capital ships, including 4 of the 6 Japanese aircraft carriers used in the Pearl Harbor attacks. It put a stop to the Japanese offensive plans and forced them to focus on defense as the United States would begin its island-hopping campaign.

The most decisive naval battle of World War 2, it was a result of Japan’s decisive battle doctrine – winning in a single, large battle rather than combat raids throughout the Pacific – and Japan’s low fuel reserves. Isoroku Yamamoto led the Japanese fleet and had drawn up insanely detailed and intricate plans for the assault on Midway. Despite his complicated plans designed to defeat the US forces and outmanuver them, there was one major flaw: the US had broken Japan’s cipher. They knew exactly what ships were part of which forces and what the plan was for the invasion. The US even knew when the battle was going to happen. So the US had a major advantage, and Japan had no idea that the US had the faintest idea of what was going to happen.

The battle was marked by mostly aircraft bombers taking out enemy capital ships. While the Japanese airfleet would launch in one large wave, the US favored sending piecemeal attacks, in hopes that the bombers would hold off the full Japanese waves from launching. While the number of ships were roughly equal, American bombers were sent out without fighter support or any cover, which led to heavy casualties from the air teams. Bombs and torpedoes dropped were also critically faulty, with many of the bombs hitting the ships would just hit the ship with a *clunk*, no explosion. The bombs that did explode, though, would prove to be fatal.

The Japanese navy saw many of their major ships damaged beyond repair and had to be scuttled. 6 capital ships were destroyed and two destroyers, as compared to the US losing one fleet carrier and one destroyer. This was a definitive US victory and Midway would continue to be a major refueling station for submarines attacking Japanese shipping lines. Japan’s loss at Midway was kept under wraps by the government and many of the Japanese survivors were redeployed in order to conceal the defeat.

This week, I want to talk about a lesser-known campaign that took place during World War 2. As we all know, America was a whole ocean away from either Germany or Japan, and that’s what prevented any attempt of an invasion. But did you know the Japanese actually put troops on US soil?

The Aleutian islands are the group of small islands extending out of Alaska. The islands are pretty uninhabited, with only natives in the islands. The Japanese actually landed on Attu island and Kiska island. The landings were supposed to coincide with the Battle of Midway, but it happened a day prior due to miscommunication. Troops landed the 3th of June, 1942 and met little resistance. The natives didn’t bother fighting back and the Japanese mostly left them alone because of it.

This is a picture of Japanese troops raising the Japanese flag on Kiska island. It was the first time the continental United States was invaded since the British attacked DC in 1815. The American public was shocked and apalled. The Japanese harbored multiple ships in the harbors and continued to supply the soldiers.

The United States Air Force and Navy would continuously raid the Japanese when there was good weather, sinking ships and bombing the Japanese bases. The Japanese would remain on Attu Island until May 1943, when the US landed troops to retake the island. The Japanese had laid booby traps and were relatively dug in. Combat would continue from the 11th of May to the 29th, when the Japanese would launch a banzai charge deep into the American line, with Americans in the far rear having to engage in hand-to-hand combat. All but 29 of the Japanese on this island were killed in the final banzai charge out of the 1,100-2,900 forces estimated to have occupied the island. Kiska was invaded in mid-August after weeks of aerial bombings, but it was found that the Japanese abandoned the islands 3 weeks ago.

For more information, here is an extremely detailed article on the campaign.

The Aleutian Islands War: June 3, 1942 – August 24, 1943 (explorenorth.com)

December 1944: The Germans are losing ground in both the East and the West. D-Day has the enemy in France and the Low Countries. Operation Barbarossa failed at the gates of Moscow and the Russians were pushing back into their land. Germany needed a big victory, so for the second time in the war, they looked to the Ardennes. The plan was simple: push through the Ardennes forest, take the 7-way crossroads at Bastogne, then push the Allies back with another Blitzkrieg.

The initial attack on the 16th of December is sucessful, but fierce American resistance limits their land gains. By the 19th, German armored divisions are to the north, south, and east of Bastogne. General McAuliffe of the 101st Airborne Division orders his troops to dig in, and to take any supplies from soldiers routing through Bastogne. When a soldier told Major Dick Winters, CO of the 2nd battalion that they would be surrounded in Bastogne, Winters famously said “We’re paratroopters, we’re supposed to be surrounded.”

The siege started the following morning, the 20th of December. The 101st Airborne Division was completely surrounded and outnumbered by German armor by the 21st. Supplies were low, food was scarce, most medical supplies had been captured by German forces earlier in the campaign.  The weather had been full of sleet, rain, and snow, so much so that supplies could not be accurately airdropped. The few attempts that were made landed the supplies in German-occupied territory. There wasn’t much of anything but the cold, and the soldiers knew of their predicament. The German general sent a letter demanding surrender, lest the 101st be completely annihilated.

When General McAuliffe read this, he responded by saying “Nuts”. This was what was relayed back to the Germans as the answer to the surrender demand. The weather cleared up on the 24th, and desperately needed supplies were airdropped into the defensive area.

The 101st Airborne was surrounded until the 26th of December, when elements of Patton’s 3rd Army came up from the south and reopened their access to the rest of the army. Fighting continued until the 6th of January for the 101st, but the Germans never took Bastogne. This is a crucial reason why the Battle of the Bulge was a failure for the Germans.

General McAuliffe was known for the rest of his career by the nickname “Nuts”, and all soldiers defending Bastogne were awarded the Presidentail Unit Citation for their defense of the critical juncture. Germany had to set aside considerable armor and artillery forces to take the town, but their attacks were fought off with a mix of entrenchment, mobile defenses, and sheer willpower. The American forces at Bastogne stopped the Germans at every assault, every combat. Multiple Regiments afterwards were known as the “Battered Bastards of Bastogne” because of their refusal to surrender, even in sub-zero temperatures.

The map of action in Bastogne. The inner blue circle is the front line the Americans holded against the Germans between the 19th and the 23rd.

In October 1944, the United States began an amphibious landing on the island of Leyte, Philippines. The original plan was to capture the southern-most island and fight north, but from previous interactions with the Japanese the US could see that there was not as fierce of resistance as they thought. The centrally located island of Leyte was chosen, as US naval superiority meant that they could deny Japanese resupplying of the southern divisions holed up, and that the soldiers would either surrender or wither away from attrition.

Unlike the German Atlantikwall, the Japanese did a very poor job of preparing their beaches for a potential invasion. American forces were able to land with ease, allowing 200,000 American forces under Douglas MacArthur to disembark onto the island.

This famous photo of MacArthur was taken at Leyte; with him is the Philippines president and MacArthur’s staff.

The important battle, though, was fought in the sea in the following days. The battle is considered by many historians to be the largest naval battle in history. A few other interesting things is it is the last naval battle between battleships, it marked the first organized use of kamikaze attacks, and it included the destruction of the final Japanese aircraft carrier that had survived from Pearl Harbor (there were originally 6 but by this time the other 5 had been scuttled or sunk). The Japanese and Americans had 4 major engagements during this naval battle, resulting in 6 American ships lost, of which 3 were capital ships, and 28 Japanese ships lost, of which 7 were capital ships.

Each number represents the individual battles that happened between William Halsey’s American/Australian combined force and Takeo Kurita’s Japanese force.

The interesting thing is that before any of these engagements occured, two American submarines managed to take down Kurita’s flagship and her sister ship, both heavy cruisers.

This battle’s significance is that it was the last time when the Japanese Imperial Navy had a chance to score a major naval victory. Halsey had left the San Bernadino Strait open in his pursuit of a Japanese carrier bait force (almost all of the carrier planes had already been shot down in the initial troop landing), which left the US landing force vulnerable to the Japanese fleet. Admiral Halsey sent Task Force 34 to cover the straight after receiving desperate calls for help from the 7th Fleet. The San Bernadino Strait folly had left the 7th fleet’s flank exposed. It is believed if TF 34 was deployed at the first request of help, the entire Center Force of Japanese ships would have been annihilated.

“A winter saved the Russians, an island saved the Brits” -Napoleon

After losing the Battle of France it was not looking good for Great Britain. They were alone facing the continent of Europe. The British Navy undeniably overpowered the Germans, but Hitler had set out with a plan, but to succeed they would need to have hundreds of thousands of soldiers cross the English Channel, where the British had naval superiority. The British Isle was untouchable for hundreds of years thanks to the power of their navy, but there was now the capability to wage war in the skies. The Luftwaffe was to bomb key industries and destroy RAF (Royal Air Force) fighters on a large scale. And so, after harrassing convoys and southern ports, the German air force launched their massive aerial assault on South England. These saw airtime bombing raids where British targets were hit en masse for weeks; a raid happening on a factory every 4-5 days for a month. What the Luftwaffe did not expect was the strength of the Royal Air Force.

The Germans overestimated the power of the Luftwaffe from their air support role in the Battle of Britain, and the transmissions that the British received made them overestimate the Luftwaffe’s strength as well. So as the Germans were placid about their airforce, Britain was precarious with it. There was no room for error and they massively stepped up their aerial production to match with the Luftwaffe. More important, though, was their capability to transmit info. A big issue in combat is that you can only predict where the enemy is and what they are doing. In a three-dimensional space such as the sky the problem is even worse. Many planes that would be sent out wouldn’t even find their targets. The British, encumbered with bombing raids, developed a more efficient system. So while a Luftwaffe pilot could find its target 30% of the time, a RAF pilot could find their target 75% of the time.

So over the next few weeks of raids and assaults, the RAF started to cut down the numbers of the Luftwaffe. The British were engaging bombers before they were reaching their targets and experienced pilots were no longer returning to Germany. So in early September, the attacks stopped and the Blitz began. Massive bombing raids on London intended on doing maximun damage. The RAF would fly sorties against each raid nightly, and the civilian bombing would find it’s end on the 31st of October, when the order was given in the Luftwaffe to stop sorties on non-military targets.

‘there are a good many people who have said to themselves, as I have been saying for several years: “Thank God for the French Army”.’ -Winston Churchill, 23 March, 1933

The Battle of France famously lasted for 6 weeks. It took 6 weeks, under 50 days, for the German army to go from a standstill to victory. No one could have predicted this, certainly not the Allies. The Germans had sent motorized troops, along with divisions of tanks, through the Benelux region and reached the French-Belgium border only 3 days after the operation began. By this time the French hadn’t even dug trenches, so the armored divisions quickly overran arriving troops and left French commanders struggling to stremline a constantly changing battlefield. But why were the French not ready for an amassing army?

The Maginot Line:

The French constructed a massive series of fortifications all along the border with Germany after The Great War. This was meant to give the French time to set up strong defensive positions and supply their troops through a well set up system and to deter German attacks, if any wer eto happen. That’s actually how the war started. Since both sides had constructed numerous forts along the border, neither side would attack, both knowing that the borders would not change. The first 8 months of the war were like this, with real combat only happening in the Polish theater. There was no combat happening on the western front and Hitler used that to mount a swift victory against Poland. Then the Panzer divisions set their sights on the neutral countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg.

Benelux Invasion (Fall Gelb):

Germany’s plan was similar to WW1. If the Allies have made the border impenetrable, then go around. And that’s exactly what happened. The Germans invaded Belgium on the 10th of May, 1940. The Allies sent most of their troops to Flanders, as it was plains and the best place for an armored spearhead into the defensive lines. Germany surprised the Allies when it sent tanks and trucks into the forests of the Ardennes.

Paths through the thick treeline were cemented with tracks as tanks drove through. The treeline gave advantages to the advancing Germans too, as troops were still being sent to Belgium to protect Flanders. The tanks were managing to break defensive lines deeply and quickly, overwhelming support divisions not expecting combat in the rear lines. By the time Allied troops had arrived in Belgium the Germans had already reached France, and were on their way to fully encircling the Allies.

By the 20th of May, 10 days since the assault began, the first Panzer divisions reached the beach. Nearly 500,000 Allied soldiers were completely surrounded in the small area to the northwest of the shaded orange: the area that German forces occupied. In the following days the advance took most of the surrounding territory. The next week was loss after loss for the Allies: 30,000 captured at Calais; 35,000 captured in Lille. The rest retreated to Dunkirk, where a rescue operation was being hatched.

Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk):

The Germans were quickly advancing the front line and with this speed came the question of supply. Infantry troops were not arriving fast enough to reinforce the lines, and the tanks were entering the marshes. At the request of a panzer commander, the assault was paused to give time to the army to consolidate and set out the battleplan in order to prevent the surrounded troops to break out. Instead of preparing a dangerous counteroffensive, the British began plans for an evacuation, and on the 26th, Operation Dynamo had began. Lucky weather and thousands of sorties flown by RAF allowed 338,000 soldiers to be ferried across the English Channel in only 11 days. The final day found a 30-40,000 French rearguard fighting off Germans up until the final transport ship had been cleared. 35,000 of those soldiers were captured by the Germans. The battle of Dunkirk ended the 4th of June, only 25 days after the first German divisions entered Belgium.

Battle of Paris (Fall Rot):

The very next day, the German army began their southward operation into France herself. During the fighting in the low countries the rest of the French military was taking their time with their grand battleplan. The evacuation at Dunkirk allowed 112,000 French soldiers to be transported back to France just in time to get back into the fight. The German offensive was much slower, seeing some trench warfare and defensive tactics meant to delay the enemy and put them in tactically disadvantageous situations. The French held territory west of the Aisne river and used that as a natural obstacle for the enemy to slow them down. It took 3 days for any river crossings to happen and that was the beginning of the end. 2 days later the French declared Paris an open city; 4 days later the Germans entered.  10 days later, only 46 days since the beginning of the assault, the armistice was signed and France capitulated.

Adolf Hitler and military high command expected the victory over France to take a million lives and months to years of attrition warfare. Instead, less than 30,000 German soldiers had been killed and the entire country had surrendered. The victory and complete takeover of mainland Europe led to the Battle of Britain: the battle for the skies of London between the RAF and the Luftwaffe.