ABSTRACT
After the humiliation of the Doolittle Raid, the Japanese military high command wished to repay the insult by hitting the Americans where it would hurt most. Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, planned to bring this about by luring the US carrier fleet unsuspectingly into action before overwhelming it with a massive combination of firepower in which his own carrier planes, supported by both a significant number of capital ships and some of his submarine units, would participate. This was to be yet another of his stealthily and meticulously planned operations in which surprise was to be a key element. On this occasion, Yamamoto figured that if the Japanese went ashore on the two small US islands of Midway in the Central Pacific, some 1,135nm (2,102 km) northwest of Pearl Harbor, the Americans would not be able to help themselves.1
They would be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.2
