The turning point for the United States in the Pacific Theater occurred at the Battle of Midway.
The Battle of Midway was an airship conflict that was fought between June 4 and 7, 1942, at the Pacific theater during World War II. In it, US naval forces stopped the Japanese attempt to invade Midway Atoll, where the Americans had a military base. Chronologically it was fought a month after the battle of the Coral Sea, five months after the Japanese conquest of Wake Island and six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, which marked the beginning of the conflict in the Pacific between Japanese and Americans. The Japanese defeat was a serious obstacle to their expansion plans for the rest of the ocean and was a "turning point" in the whole conflict. For this reason, Midway is generally considered the most important battle of the Pacific War and one of the most decisive of the Second War.
Both sides suffered significant losses. The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, a heavy cruiser and some 240 aircraft, which greatly weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy, while the Americans lost only one aircraft carrier and one destroyer. Strategically, the outcome of the battle meant that the Imperial Navy lost the initiative in the Pacific, which ultimately passed to the Americans. The attack on Midway - like that of Pearl Harbor - was not part of a plan to conquer the United States, but rather aimed at eliminating US Pacific naval forces and avoiding intervention in the Japanese campaign in east and southeast Asia.
The Battle of Midway is often called by historians as the "turning point" of the Pacific War. The Japanese navy continued to fight with ferocity even against the naval supremacy of the United States at the end of the war. However, the victory at Midway gave the Americans the strategic initiative in the war, as it inflicted irreparable damage on the Japanese aircraft carriers and shortened the time of the war in the Pacific.
