Why did Japan want the island of Midway?

A major goal for Japan during World War II was to gain territory in East Asia and Southwest Pacific, effectively removing the United States as the dominate power. Japanese military planners hoped to defeat the US Pacific Fleet and take Midway, from which they could launch additional attacks on Pearl Harbor.



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It was the deployment of a new and terrible weapon, the atomic bomb, which forced the Japanese into a surrender that they had vowed never to accept. Harry Truman would go on to officially name September 2, 1945, V-J Day, the day the Japanese signed the official surrender aboard the USS Missouri.

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For 2,000 years Japan had never been defeated. There was no word for surrender in the Japanese dictionary. And although the Japanese government never believed it could defeat the United States, it did intend to negotiate an end to the war on favorable terms.

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