Why did us want Midway Island?

The United States was inspired to invest in the improvement of Midway in the mid-1930's with the rise of imperial Japan. In 1938 the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the lagoon during this period and, in 1938, Midway was declared second to Pearl Harbor in terms of naval base development in the Pacific.



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Whether or not Hawaii could be occupied, defeating Japan would be a much more daunting task after a defeat at Midway. The United States would have had to build a new Pacific carrier fleet, almost from scratch, and start a potential island-hopping campaign much further east than the Solomon Islands.

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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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Entry into the Midway Islands is heavily restricted and requires a special-use permit to visit, often from the U.S. Military or the US Fish and Wildlife Services. And they both generally only give permits to scientists and educators.

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