Two questions...
(1) Where, specifically, do they think they're going from there? Midway is in the middle of nowhere. It's certainly a long drive from the Western Pacific. It's also a good five-day drive to our West coast. To hold it, they'd need more than they could cram onto that tiny Island. Had everything gone right for them, was Pearl their next objective? If that's the case, I still don't see why Midway was all that strategically-important to them. Why not another surprise attack on Pearl, in lieu of Midway? The only thing I can figure is, they expected to meet our carrier fleets at Midway, which would have been a distinct advantage over their meeting us at Pearl. I think they knew they didn't have enough, even in terms of that big Striking Force, to meet our carrier fleets at Pearl, and deal with Pearl. That's why they went for that confrontation at Midway.
(2) As a corollary to this, is it a foregone conclusion our carrier fleets would have been deployed to the Island while that big Striking Force was still there, or would we rather have waited for that Striking Force to have gone home before doing that? Personally, I don't know. I do think, though, there's a fair possibility we'd have let that Island go for a more opportune time.
I'll let you go at that. What do you think?
(1) Where, specifically, do they think they're going from there? Midway is in the middle of nowhere. It's certainly a long drive from the Western Pacific. It's also a good five-day drive to our West coast. To hold it, they'd need more than they could cram onto that tiny Island. Had everything gone right for them, was Pearl their next objective? If that's the case, I still don't see why Midway was all that strategically-important to them. Why not another surprise attack on Pearl, in lieu of Midway? The only thing I can figure is, they expected to meet our carrier fleets at Midway, which would have been a distinct advantage over their meeting us at Pearl. I think they knew they didn't have enough, even in terms of that big Striking Force, to meet our carrier fleets at Pearl, and deal with Pearl. That's why they went for that confrontation at Midway.
(2) As a corollary to this, is it a foregone conclusion our carrier fleets would have been deployed to the Island while that big Striking Force was still there, or would we rather have waited for that Striking Force to have gone home before doing that? Personally, I don't know. I do think, though, there's a fair possibility we'd have let that Island go for a more opportune time.
I'll let you go at that. What do you think?