Admiral Chester Nimitz knew the Japanese battle plans for the Battle of Midway, which helped him to defeat the Japanese forces.
Explanation:
In April 1942 the Americans managed to decode a Japanese secret message. It stated that Admiral Yamamoto would initiate a new attack on the United States in a short time against Midway. In response, intelligence officers in Pearl Harbor they sent a false message to the allies telling them that the island's freshwater reserves would be depleted due to a failure in the desalination systems. The trap worked, because some time later the Japanese secret services throughout the Pacific informed the headquarters in Tokyo that "Midway lacked drinking water". The alleged surprise attack on Midway had been discovered before it was carried out.
To combat such an attack, Admiral Chester Nimitz - commander-in-chief of the United States Navy in the Pacific Ocean - was going to need any warship that was available. Nimitz still had the two aircraft carriers of Admiral William F. Halsey's task force, but because of an infection he had been hospitalized. He was replaced by Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, who was commander of Battleships, but inexperienced in tactics of naval combats. Because of this, Nimitz was forced to urgently summon Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher and his fleet, that little before had participated in the battle of the Coral Sea. Fletcher arrived just in time at Pearl Harbor to stock up, load supplies and leave for Midway.
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 World 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 the Pacific.
