Even American war historians openly admit that PURE LUCK and BAD LUCK plays a large role in any military conflict.
The Japanese culture thrived on its samurai bushido fighting culture, but paradoxically, like any authoritarian and later, totalitarian society, fear of intiative and fear of making mistakes overshadows iniative, gut instinct, and risk taking, the opposite of the British SAS, "Who Dares, Wins". Penalty for making errors and mistakes was harsh in Japan, including severe loss of face, shame, shame to one's family name, loss of stature among one's peers, and the strong cultural demand to commit suicide to atone for one's misdeeds and failings. Now that doesn't mean the Japanese love to commit suicide. Like any other human they'd prefer not to. So during World War II, Japanese top brass could often display a fatal, 'lack of nerve' at the wrong moment. During Pearl Harbor, the second wave of Japanese attacking planes started to suffer losses as American sailors started firing back from the ships and even from the shore. Worse, the carriers were not there and the Japanese attack force admiral had no idea where they were. Rather than risk his success, the admiral decided to retreat, basically turning the fight into a hit-and-run affair.
Midway was pure bad luck for the Japanese, not to mention the Americans had secretly broken their message code and were prepared. The bad luck for the Japanese was that the American attack became uncoordinated. The torpedo planes arrived first which drew down the Japanese top cover. At the cost of sacrificing all but one torpedo plane, a tragic loss, the American dive bombers were left unmolested to make their accurate dives upon the Japanese carriers. The loss of four Japanese fleet carriers for the loss of one American fleet carrier was seen at the time as a huge tactical victoy and morale-building boost for the U.S. military and American people. Only late in the war was Midway realized by both sides as a major strategic victory and a catastrophic loss to the Japanese from which they were unable to recover. Midway was the naval Stalingrad in mid-1942 just as the naval battle of the Coral Sea was the equivalent of the battle for Moscow in early 1941. The unstoppable Japanese naval advance was stymied at Coral Sea, then finally turned back at Midway. The Japanese surface fleet was still formidable, however, and even continued to inflict a bloody nose upon the Americans and British as at Savo Island in late 1942, into 1943. But the writing was on the wall. Starting in mid-1944, the Japanese navy began collapsing and the long retreat to the Japan home islands began.
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