Military Officer - December 2007 - (Page 64) Two aerial shots of Midway Atoll show Eastern Island in the foreground today and in 1941 (bottom). The naval air station was decommissioned in 1997 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took charge. Midway is now home to the world’s largest colony of the Laysan albatross or gooney bird (inset). Located 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii, Midway became strategically important as the “sentinel of Hawaii,” and the naval air station was constructed in 1940. In 1942, it would be the central focus in one of the epic battles of the war in the Pacific. In the dark days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese appeared invincible. In the spring of 1942, they finalized plans to invade and hold Midway, an essential base from which they could take Hawaii, leaving the West Coast of the U.S. under threat. But American code breakers were hard at work intercepting their plans. Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, used the intelligence to sortie his three available carriers in time to ambush the Japenese about 200 miles northwest of Midway, when they were most vulnerable. 64 MILITARY OFFICER DECEMBER 2007 IMAGES: PREVIOUS SPREAD, R.G. SMITH; ABOVE, NAVAL HISTORICAL FOUNDATION; TOP AND INSET, MAJ. DALE ROBINSON, USMC-RET.
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