Following a successful attack on the Navy base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese Empire felt that it still lacked the means to fulfill its objective of severely impairing the United States Navy's Pacific range of operations.
This was so because Japan's aspirations to rule Greater Asia were regarded as seriously threatened by the United States and her allies. This carried on Japan's strategy to attack the base and fleet of warships and fighter planes at Athol Midway. Strategic efforts and misleading strategies to generate threatening conditions on the Aleutian islands preceded this; it was hoped that this would cause the United States to be caught in the area and subsequently subject to attack by the Japanese Navy fleet in full force. What actually happened, though, was the reverse: the naval battle at Midway on June 4–7, 1942 sank four aircraft carriers, fighter planes, and several warships as well as many crew members and pilots, severely handicapped the Japanese Empire. On the United States side, many troops perished and an aircraft carrier and several warships were sunk and damaged. Writing this article aims to use the background of the naval battle at Midway as a very useful lesson in developing war strategy planning, especially in marine defense strategies, which can be applied by the Indonesian Navy in the present and the future. Regarding the history of naval battles generally, including the battle at Midway, the research technique applied is a qualitative method with a literary approach. Concurrently, the output of this paper addresses the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Indonesia as input on the need of a mature strategy in the National Defense Strategy at sea.